The Other's Story
by Cyanide 6
Summary: What if there was another factory? Another supercomputer? A different team finding it? An AI before XANA? A different side to the story... Not an OC story. Please read and review! For XANA's Lair's XaJuWriMo challenge.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey all! If anyone's reading to kill me for starting a new story, please, I can explain! I've joined XANA's Lair, and one of the challenges is to write a 25,000 word story in the month of June. So wish me luck, and please review!**

"When Sissi sees this, she'll let us back on for sure!" Milly bragged loudly to Tamiya, who ran behind her, a camera toted in one hand.

Tamiya wasn't sure how doing a film on one of their towns dilapidated old factories was gonna let the keep their spot on Kadic's news crew, but she wasn't going to ask Milly, who had been in a rather bad mood, since Sissi had put them on notice after, what she called, "poor coverage of our annual dance". Tamiya suspected the true reason behind firing them was that Milly had gone to the dance with Ulrich, and Sissi hadn't. But Tamiya was willing to try this at least. She hadn't had any better ideas, anyway.

Milly had, though, given Tamiya the option of which factory to choose from. Tamiya had chosen the south one. It was less run down than the north. Besides, people had said that homeless people had moved into the north factory. Or at least, that they kept hearing things at that factory. Plus, it was surrounded by a moat of water, which just creeped her out.

They arrived at the southern factory, and the girls started filming.

Tamiya had to hand it to Milly, her friend sure knew how to make something boring sound interesting. Tamiya thought the segment dragged at a few places, but fortunately, Milly put her in charge of editing.

Tamiya sighed, watching her redheaded friend show the audience around the industrial sized elevator. It was hard not to be envious of her. Milly was pretty, smart, artistic, creative, and always got her way.

Tamiya leaned against the wall, sighing, as Milly called a cut.

"Come on, Tamiya, help me figure this out!" Milly was fidgeting around with the elevator controls.

"Milly, I don't think we should try to activate it. What if it's broken? What if it plunges us to our deaths?"

Milly just laughed. "Don't worry so much! If it works, then there's no reason why it should break!"

Tamiya was about to ask how Milly had come up with this convoluted, surely flawed, piece of logic, when the elevator gave a resounding jerk, and the door slid shut quickly with a bang, immersing the girls in darkness.

The elevator began lurching downward.

"Now you've down it, Milly!" Tamiya cried. "We're done for!"

Milly clung to Tamiya. "I'm sorry! I didn't know! I-"

The elevator lurched to a stopped, and the door opened partway.

Tamiya saw that the elevator was stuck between levels. Only the bottom part of the elevator showed the next room. Light from that room lit up the elevator.

Milly had her eyes pressed shut. "Are we dead yet? Did it crash?"

Tamiya wriggled free from Milly's grasp and hit the elevator button again.

It made a loud churning sound, and shook, but didn't make any move. A few tries later, and it stopped moving altogether.

"I don't th-think it's w-working," Tamiya whispered, before crouching down to peer into the room.

"Tamiya! Where'd you go? Don't make me open my eyes! Tamiya, I'm scared!"

The space to the next room was maybe big enough to squeeze through, but Tamiya wasn't about to try. What if she couldn't get back out?

The room beyond had walls lined with bookshelves. In the middle was large computer interface. The interface was dark, and the bookshelves looming had an eerie effect. But what creeped Tamiya out the most were the lights overhead, glowing.

If this factory was as dilapidated as they had thought, then the there was no way the lights should still be on.

That meant someone had been here. Recently.

Tamiya pulled her head back in, shaking. "Milly, we have to get out of here."

"Tamiya, you're still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here. But we have to get out of here!"

Tamiya scanned the barely lit elevator, and saw that there was an escape hatch at the top.

"Milly, up there. There's an escape hatch. Get on my shoulders, so you can get up. Then you lift me up."

Milly was shaking. "A-a-alright," she whispered. She took a deep breath, opening her eyes, and quickly climbed up on her shoulders.

She lifted open the hatch and climbed out. Then she exchanged a hand to Tamiya, but Tamiya could barely grasp her hand. Pulling herself up was out of the question.

Milly's face, white as a ghost's, disappeared. Tamiya heard footsteps as her friend retreated up the ladder in the elevator shaft.

"Milly? Oh come on, Milly, this isn't funny! Please, Milly, I need help!" She was busy screaming her friend's name, when she reappeared.

"H-here, catch," Milly called, as a rope slid down. Tamiya grabbed on, and Milly pulled her up until she clambered out.

"L-let's get out of here," she whispered. The two girls clambered up the ladder, as quick as they could with their hands shaking.

As they tumbled out of the elevator shaft, the two girls took off running.

They came to a stop just outside the school, panting.

Milly looked up at Tamiya. "Wh-what was it? That scared you so bad."

Tamiya looked her in the eye. "The lights. From the room. Someone had been there."

It wasn't until dinner that the two girls remembered the camera that was abandoned in the elevator.

Tamiya shook her head. "No way are we going back for it, Milly. You heard me, there's someone in there. They already know someone was there. If they find out it was us," she lowered her voice to a whisper "they'll come for us. Milly, they're not supposed to be there anymore than us, but if someone is sneaking around the factory, then they won't want anyone to figure out what they're doing."

Milly's eyes shone with tears, as a knew thought hit her. "B-but Tamiya. If someone finds the camera, th-th-they'll already know! We introduce ourselves on it. We say what school we go to, our ages, our names, everything! We have to go back!"

Tamiya looked at her younger friend, shaking, plainly terrified.

"I'll go," Tamiya bravely offered. "The less of us that go, the more likely we are to go unnoticed. Plus, I'm faster and stronger. Besides, if you stay behind, you can call the police if I don't come back."

Milly looked scared, but Tamiya was firm. "I'll go now, before the sun sets. That way, there will be extra light, both from the room and from outside." She stood up. "Get help if I'm not back in two hours."

"One hour," Milly responded. "I don't want you in there any longer than you have to!"

"Alright," Tamiya responded, before heading off.

She ran all the way to the factory, which looked ominous in the fading light.

"Alright," she said to herself. "Be brave." But she couldn't shake the thought that someone might be in there.

She ran in, down the first hallway, and turned onto where the elevator was. It was still down, probably broken.

Tamiya started climbing down the ladder, climbing quickly down.

She arrived in the elevator, which was still really dark. She cursed herself for not bringing a flashlight. She set to work, trying to find the camera. But a few moments of feeling around the elevator reveled it to not be there.

Tamiya felt close to tears. Had the mysterious occupants taken it? Were they heading for the school right now? Had they been following her? Were they watching her right now?

Tamiya was trembling, but had an idea. When she had freaked out about someone being here, she might have kicked the camera out of the elevator. Into the outside room.

Tamiya took a deep breath, crouched down, and peered out of the elevator.

There, on the ground, lay the camera.

"Oh no, I am _**not**_ going down there," she whimpered. But really, did she really have a different option?

Lowering herself to the ground, she squeezed out of the elevator, and into the room with the bookshelves and computer.

When she hopped down, she noticed a panel on the wall, blinking. The message on it blinked, reading:

**Exterior Power Source detected! Power being directed to laboratory. Lights at: 65%. Computer: offline. Additional services: offline.**

Tamiya read this a few times, before taking a deep breath. This relaxed her so much. The lights went on automatically, taking power from an outside source. No one was down here. There was no other way of getting to this room, the laboratory, except through the elevator, and the elevator was broken. It would be hard for anyone bigger than Tamiya to get in.

She took a sigh of relief. There was no one here.

With the fear gone, Tamiya felt a sense of curiosity. She was itching to look around. Then she had a better idea. She would take the camera back, and tomorrow the two would explore the room together.

She scooped up the camera, and headed back to the school.

.

"Tamiya, where were you? I was so worried! I thought you were dead! I was ready to call the police!"

"Milly, I was gone for twenty minutes. But I did find something interesting." She explained her find to Milly, and her desire to return to explore tomorrow.

Milly stared, a thoughtful look on her face. Then a smile broke across her face. "Oh Tamiya, this is wonderful! We can show how we explored a little known secret room in the factory!" Milly threw her arms around her friend's shoulder.

Then Jim banged on the door, telling the girls that it was time to go to bed.

That night, all Tamiya could think about was the lab. What did those books contain? What did that computer do? What was the room meant for?

Tamiya finally fell asleep. That night, her dreams were plagued with thoughts and wonderings about the hidden lab.

**What did you think? Will you please review?**


	2. Chapter 2

"This is so cool!" Milly exclaimed, looking around the lab room. She had leafed through one of the books, which detailed the working of something called Kankralet lasers. Half of it didn't make sense, but what did was fascinating.

The girls had decided to find out what the room contained before they started filming.

"Milly, look! There's a trapdoor over here!"

Milly ran over to investigate the trapdoor. It was made of metal, and rusted, but it wasn't too bad. Not bad at all. The girls were able to get it open after a few minutes.

Milly climbed down first. The room was surprisingly empty. It had an elevator door, but because the elevator was broken, it had no access, and didn't even open. Inside the room were two tall cylinders in the middle of the room.

"What are those?" Tamiya asked when she got down.

"I'm not sure," Milly mused, fingering one. It had a long crack down it, but nothing else. After a few minutes of trying to open it, she checked the other one. She found several slots and what seemed like drives on a computer.

She pried open a compartment, which showed a lever. "Tamiya, check this out. I think it might power up the computer monitor upstairs."

Tamiya, who was far more cautious and levelheaded, wasn't sure. "I don't know, Milly. What if it doesn't do what we want it to? What if it breaks the machine?"

"Aw, come on, Tamiya! You can't break a machine by pulling a lever. This isn't a sci-fi, things don't have self-destruct buttons or levers." And without a second thought, she yanked on the lever.

The machine seemed to come to life, making whirring sounds as it powered up.

"Come on, Tamiya!" She called, excitedly, climbing up the ladder.

She ran to the computer screen, which had started up.

At first, it just emitted a whirring sound.

Then, slowly, the screen began to light up.

It was black at first, and then it lit up, to show a computer background.

Milly began typing at the interface. She wasn't hugely knowledgeable about computers, but she knew how to access them with basic Operating Systems. She knew how to directly access and manipulate programs, but she wasn't a computer genius.

She was a fast learner, though.

She found an access to something called Lyoko, but it was heavily guarded. "Tamiya, see if you can find any books about Lyoko."

Tamiya began combing through the shelves. The books were labeled with labels such as: Supercomputer, Return Trip, Access Point, Volume 7.

It appeared that the labels contained how the program was activated (the supercomputer), and then the specific program (the return trip), and what about the specific program was being discussed in the particular book, and then what volume. Some had much more specifications than just this one.

Soon she stumbled upon: Supercomputer, Lyoko, Forest Sector, Trees, Leaves, Volume 3.

"Uh, Milly? Most of these books are about Lyoko."

Milly glanced up. "Specifically."

Tamiya shrugged. "Supercomputer, Lyoko, Monster, Manta, Laser, Volume 2. Supercomputer, Lyoko, Carthage, Elevator, Elevator platform, Volume 3. Supercomputer-"

"Alright, I get it," Milly cut her off. "There are thousands of books here about Lyoko. Let's make a list. How many are about Lyoko?"

After counting, the girls found that about 932 books were about Lyoko. It wasn't hard to find these numbers, all they had had to do was count the highest numbered volume in each set. When they found Supercomputer, Lyoko, Ice Sector, Water, Volume 8, they counted that as eight books, and didn't bother counting all the ones before.

Further classification showed that 18 were about Kankralets, 24 were about Mantas, 24 were about Crabs, 29 were about Blocs, 31 were about Tarantulas, 16 were about Creepers, 22 were about Hornets, 20 were about Kongres, 19 were about Sharks, 39 were about Kalamars, 36 were about Megatanks, and a whopping 59 were about the Scyphazoa.

These were in the monster category, and there were 337 of them in all.

Tamiya looked discouraged. "These'll take _forever _to read! And these are just monsters! What do they even mean, anyway?"

Milly still had a determined look in her eye. "They're programs, Tamiya. I don't know what for. They seem too complex to be just for games, and they're far too complex to be just designs."

"Then what?" Tamiya asked. "Robots? Real creatures?"

Milly shook her head. "I'm not sure. The first book for each monster is just a general description of the monster. Those'll be the ones I read, if any. Is there a Lyoko, General book?"

The two girls searched, before finding a few books that discussed Lyoko as a whole, and not individual parts, like the leaves of the trees in the forest sector.

Milly took the general books about the monsters, and the general books about Lyoko.

"I'm gonna start reading these. You make a list of other predominate sections in the books."

As she set to work reading the very first book on Lyoko, Tamiya began browsing.

The one with the most books, nearly as many as Lyoko, was about X.A.N.A.

There were 927 books about X.A.N.A. After that, there were books about: Return Trips, Virtualization, and Modifiers. These were the next most prominent. In comparison, there were remarkably few about Materialization, Polymorphic Specters, and a few others.

Tamiya made a list and counted them, before turning back to Milly, who was reading with a fervent look on her face.

"Tamiya!" She said, when Tamiya walked over. "I figured it out! Lyoko is a virtual world created to house an AI called X.A.N.A. These monsters were meant to guard this X.A.N.A."

Tamiya frowned. "Seriously Milly? A virtual world? Where?"

"In this other factory, somewhere a while away. It's in the supercomputer. Not ours, but a different one."

Tamiya shook her head. "That doesn't exist. Trust me Milly."

Milly's eyes blazed with that determined look, and Tamiya knew that any chance she had of getting out of this was gone. "But if they _did _exist, we wouldn't know about them. They would belong to secret parts of the government, kept away from the public."

Tamiya shrugged. "I mean, I guess. But still…"

Milly shrugged. "Well, I'm gonna read more about it. Why don't you go back to the school." The girls had gotten there early, and they had a break the first period, but they were already late for their first class.

"What about you?"

"I already told you, I'm gonna read more. Besides, I've _never _skipped class before. They won't get me in trouble. And some people from the 8th grade do it _all the time." _'Some people from the 8th grade' pertained to Milly's crush, Ulrich Stern, and his group. They skipped classes all the time.

Tamiya bit her lip. "What should I say if someone asks where you are?"

"Say you don't know."

Tamiya sighed, and, pulling herself up into the elevator, climbed up the rope, which they had knotted for easier access, and climbed the ladder out of the shaft.

Then she took off running, back to Kadic, for Math class.

.

That lunch time, she ate alone.

"Hey, Tamiya," came a piercing voice. She glanced up and saw Sissi.

She looked back down. "Hey Sissi."

"How's your little project doing? Still looking for something interesting to film about? You'd better give up now, no 7th graders have ever kept a spot on the news crew."

Tamiya bit her lip. "You said if our project was good enough-"

"Oh, pft, that's what _everyone _says! But there are what people _say _and what people _do._ Two very different things, Tamiya. And I'm telling you right now that you and Milly have about as much of a chance of staying on the news team that I do of sprouting wings like a butterfly!"

Tamiya frowned, blinking back tears. She would _not _let Sissi get to her. She wouldn't.

"Where is your little red spark anyway? I'll bet it's hard for you to be someone's shadow when they're not around?" Sissi glanced over at Jim, who was busy glaring at Ulrich and his gang. "Ha! She's goes missing, even you don't know where she is, and _still _no one cares. Even Jim's more preoccupied with Ulrich's group than with her! You have as much chance of getting noticed by anyone that Milly does of going out with Ulrich!"

That set Tamiya off. "A pretty good chance then, huh! Or have you forgotten that Milly already went out with Ulrich to the school dance! You have as much chance of winning Ulrich's favor as you do of finding out his group's big secret! Which is as much as Jim does. You know what's pathetic, Sissi? You. Everything in your life centers around someone or something else. You try so hard to get Ulrich's attention, and finding out their secret, and joining their group, can't you even see how they run away when you get near them? Haven't you heard what they say about you? Do _you_ do **any**thing that doesn't involve trying to get at someone? Is it any wonder you have no friends? You get Herb and Nicholas. _I _could do better. You're pathetic, Sissi, and really not worth my time. Why don't you stalk Ulrich's group a little? You might convince Ulrich that you're _not _a scheming witch. Who knows? Maybe he'll see the light! More likely he'll scorn you like every other time, but who knows? You might get lucky, and then your pathetic life might mean something. But for now, just leave, Sissi. You're a waste of space."

Tamiya went back to eating her meal, in silence. Sissi just stood, mouth gaping like a frog.

"Why you-you little," she tried, before storming off. "Eurgh, little brat. Why I even wasted my time…"

She stormed off, and left Tamiya alone for the rest of the day. But something Sissi had said made Tamiya think. No, none of the insults, but what she had said about Jim.

Jim hadn't used to be this way. He used to be a funny, nice guy, who acted gruff to get the kids' attentions. But nowadays, he acted overly obsessed with Ulrich's group. And he was mean. Much more mean than he used to be.

It struck her as odd that she really hadn't noticed it before, but it was really apparent.

That night, Tamiya headed down to the factory, to see what Milly was doing.

Her red haired friend was pouring over a book, sitting in the chair at the computer, occasionally stopping to type something in the computer. She looked up as Tamiya slid in.

"So, what have you learned?" Tamiya asked.

Milly grinned. "Lyoko is a virtual world, I've already told you that, but it's massive! It's got five sectors, Ice, Mountain, Forest, Desert, and one called Carthage, which you need this things called the transporter to get to, and you need a code, Scipio, to activate the transporter. Then, there are pictures of the monsters," Milly opened one of the books to show a full color picture of a cockroach like thing, with a target symbol on it. "This is a Kankralet. They're one of the weakest monsters. But this one's the Skyphazoa," she showed Tamiya a picture of a strange jellyfish-like monster. "Basically, X.A.N.A. is an AI that works in Lyoko. But that's not really where he lives, he only uses it to access Earth through. Ergo, he has no form on Lyoko. The Scyphazoa is the closest thing he has to an actual form. X.A.N.A. wasn't created with a form. According to the books on him, the prototype that was created before X.A.N.A. _did _have a form, but the creators found that wasn't what they wanted. So they made a new AI."

Tamiya shook her head. This whole thing was so-so bizarre! "What's X.A.N.A. good for?"

"Hold on, let me see," she flipped through a few pages. "Ah, here. He was a multi-agent program, designed to destroy something called project Carthage. In a nutshell, this project Carthage was a program intended to target and shut down all electronic devices in all of the EU. It was a program created by enemies, but this was all years ago. Look, here, Tamiya." She ushered her friend over. "Isn't this strange. At the very end of this book," she held up one titled: Supercomputer, X.A.N.A., general, volume 14, "which is the last book of X.A.N.A., general, it says that the destruction of project Carthage was successful, but X.A.N.A. wasn't shutting down normally."

Milly read, " 'However, X.A.N.A. is showing signs that the intelligence in him may be rebelling slightly. My partner is against shutting him down, stating that we worked too hard to delete such a sophisticated program, but I will try to convince him that diplomacy is futile in this situation. I know he will bring up the .K.I. program, but this case is different from the last. X.A.N.A. has become a threat, .K.I. was stored away before he had the chance to become a threat. And X.A.N.A. won't stand to be stored away, he must be shut down.

" ' But I'm overthinking this. My partner is sure to see sense. I will discuss this tomorrow.' "

Tamiya frowned as Milly came to a stop. "What happened after that?"

Milly's eyes were wide. "Nothing! That's the very last book of them all! And notice, at first the books are very manual-like. But by the end, they're more like journals. Also, the last one to be written was just a little over ten years ago."

"But then, it doesn't seem realistic, then, does it?" Tamiya asked. "I mean, there _wasn't _a big AI that turned rogue."

Milly shrugged this off. "Maybe they were successful and just didn't write it down. Tamiya, that doesn't necessarily mean it never happened. And a lot of the programs in the volumes are in this computer. I can't access them, 'cause they need codes to access, but they're real, Tamiya!"

Tamiya wasn't sure, but it was getting late, and she didn't feel like arguing the point. "Well, it's getting late, Milly. We should head back."

Milly shook her head. "I'm gonna stay here. I'll read more tonight, then tomorrow, I'll go back to class. Was anyone angry that I wasn't there?"

Tamiya shook her head. "No, you were right. Jim was way too focused on Ulrich's group. Well, I'll talk more tomorrow, I can tell you're busy." She smiled, seeing how excited Milly was.

Milly nodded. "Oh, and bring my laptop. I wanna see if I can connect to this using it."

"OK, Milly." Tamiya rolled her eyes and headed back.

Milly kept reading the books, occasionally typing a few things into the computer to bring up programs. She could read the programs, but the editing feature was locked.

Then Milly began reading a book about Memory Modifiers, and was so engrossed in it, that it took her a minute to realize that the computer screen had changed. A new window had popped up, and this window was all black. A blinking insertion point was flashing on the screen.

Milly leaned closer to examine it, when suddenly, it began typing.

**Who's there?**


	3. Chapter 3

Milly stared for a minute, before typing back.

**Who are _you_?**

A second later.

**I am Hi. Ro. K.I., prototype AI.**

Milly wrote back:

**I'm Milly Solovieff. Where are you?**

The program typed back.

**I'm in the computer. Where are you?**

Milly's eyes widened. She quickly reread the few parts that detailed about the .K.I. program. He was a prototype for the X.A.N.A. program, but that was all that was there.

The program typed again.

**Hello? Are you still there?**

Milly typed back.

**One minute.**

Quickly added labels to make the typing less confusing.

**Milly: I'm outside the computer. There aren't any books here about you. What happened to you?**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: Do you want to read my full story?**

**Milly: Yes, I'm here all night.**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: I was created by two scientists. Their names have been removed from my memory. They created me in an attempt to destroy an enemy program. This program's name is also no longer in my memory. However, I was given a form and a conscience, and after many months of corrective programing, it was determined that I would be unable to complete the task I was created for. My creators, started on a new program, the name of which I don't remember. They used me as a prototype to create this second AI. They created this one to be without a form or conscience, to assure that nothing would get in its way of completing its goal. Once my creators had no further use of me, they stored me away in a secondary supercomputer. I was originally created in a different one, one that contained a virtual world, but I was subsequently moved here, to make room for the other AI. My creators did not destroy me, as they agreed against deleting such a sophisticated piece of software. For the next few years or so, I gained information on the new AI and the world it was in, as well as other programs on the supercomputers. This stopped when the other supercomputer was shut down. Soon after my computer was shut down until about a day ago, when it was restarted. However, even before then, I received trickles of consciousness, which I believe was a result of the other supercomputer being turning back on. Only now have I managed to communicate.**

Milly stared at the message, reading it, and rereading it. This whole thing was so out there.

Yet…

**Milly: I've read a few names from the books here. They're X.A.N.A. and Lyoko. Do they mean anything to you?**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: Yes! X.A.N.A. is the name of the AI that replaced me. Lyoko is the virtual world.**

**Milly: What happened to X.A.N.A.? According to these books, he became unstable, and they were considering shutting him down before he became a threat.**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: I'm not sure. I do know that just before the other supercomputer was shut down, there were violent readings from Lyoko. I'm not sure if they were brought on by X.A.N.A., but it is my belief that they were what caused my creators to shut down the supercomputer.**

**Milly: Why were you not right for the task they had created you for? Was the program you were supposed to destroy called Carthage?**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: Yes it was! How do you know all this? I was deemed unfit to destroy Carthage as my form made me undesirable to be able to infiltrate Carthage's sophisticated protections. Also, my creators worried that having a conscience would cause problems in my ability to destroy Carthage. But how is it that you know these names?**

**Milly: Where I am, there are books. Books lining the walls on shelves. They hold all this information about Lyoko, and X.A.N.A., and Carthage. But not much is said about you. Do you know why?**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: No! I didn't even know these books existed! Are my creators' names in there?**

**Milly: No. I hadn't noticed before, I wonder why? Every time one of the creators are mentioned, they're just stated as 'the creators'. I guess they really must've wanted to protect their identity.**

Milly and .K.I. typed all night. Milly learned from what .K.I. told her, that X.A.N.A. was an AI, but when his system started rebelling, the creators had taken measures.

What these measures were, were unknown, though .K.I. had a few theories.

X.A.N.A. may have been shut down, and the creators decided that using AIs was too dangerous. X.A.N.A. may have been reasoned with, and quieted down. X.A.N.A. may have agreed to be put aside (similar to what happened to .K.I.).

Then .K.I. asked who Milly was.

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: I've told you what I know right now, but you've told me nothing about you. I don't even know if Milly is a girl's name or a boy's name!**

**Milly: Oh, I hadn't thought… Well, I'm a girl. I go to Kadic Academy. I'm 11 years old.**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: Oh. I'm 11 years old too! Or at least that's how long I've been around. Plus, I have an 11 year old form, and an 11 year old mentality. I think that counts me as an 11 year old.**

Milly laughed reading his message. Just in the last few hours she'd managed to thaw his stiff, cold, formal writing tone into something more relaxed.

**Milly: What do you look like?**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: … I don't quite remember… It's been a while. I do remember that I was modeled after one of my creator's husbands. Obviously a younger version, I believe, to protect him. I think I'm Japanese.**

**Milly: Huh. Well, you remember one thing about your creators. At least one was a female.**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: …**

**Milly: What is it?**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: I don't know how I remembered that. My creators must've been lax in their safe guarding. They didn't check everything after all. I still don't remember anything about her, though. I think my hair is black, which I suppose would make sense, considering I'm Japanese.**

**Milly: Why can't you remember what you look like? If you're a program, shouldn't you remember everything that hasn't been erase?**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: No, I guess. That was another problem. By making my AI more human, it made my mind more human. Therefore, no perfect computer memory. What do you look like?**

**Milly: Not much. I have red hair that I keep up in pigtails. I'm kinda small, and I have green eyes.**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: It'd be cool to see you in person.**

**Milly: Is that possible?**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: I'm not sure. I have no physicality, so I don't know if I could ever go to Earth. I could go to Lyoko, and we could talk there, but that would be dangerous.**

**Milly: Why?**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: To move me here, my creators had to strip me down to the most minimum of my program, and later moved all the extraneous details over. It would take a computer genius to be able to dismantle and reconfigure me like that. Even they almost left stuff behind.**

Milly paused for a moment, thinking.

**Milly: Hiroki, I was thinking. The other supercomputer, the one with X.A.N.A. and Lyoko, they're on, right? That's why this factory has light. Besides, you said you could sense it. If it's on, who turned it on? Do you think it's your creators?**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: … I can't access it. There's something blocking my access to Lyoko. A code.**

**Milly: That's the same thing that's stopping me from accessing it. But the codes are nowhere. They're probably intended to make sure that even if someone breaks in here, they can't get to Lyoko. Damn! Can you feel anything?**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: … Yes, I can feel something. A slight pulsating feeling.**

**Milly: What is it?**

** Hi. Ro. K.I.: … I think… It's X.A.N.A.**


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Eurgh, fanfic screwed up on me. It changed the name of the AI. If you read his name as just K.I., that's NOT his name, but for some reason fanfic didn't like it, so it changed it. I've fixed it back, sorry for any confusions :P**

**On with the show!**

**.**

**Milly: X.A.N.A.? But how could that be? These pulsations, are they evil?**

**Hi. Ro. K.I.: They feel to be. How could this be? Didn't the creators stop him? I thought you said that one creator was going to convince the other to shut X.A.N.A. down!**

**Milly: The creator must've been unsuccessful in convincing the other to shut him down! But then why would so long have passed without anything from X.A.N.A.?**

**Hi. Ro. K.I.: It's possible they turned off the supercomputer. That would stop an AI without deleting it. But who turned it on, I have no clue.**

**Milly: Do you suppose they knew? Maybe it was an accident, like with me and you. Only instead of finding a nice AI, they found X.A.N.A.**

**Hi. Ro. K.I.: Perhaps. I'll put out a scan to sense these pulsations further, but that's all that can be done now.**

Milly jumped at the sound of footsteps clanging down the elevator shaft. She whipped around to find Tamiya climbing in.

"Oh, Tamiya!" She exclaimed. "You'll never guess what I just found!" Quickly, speaking faster than she ever had before (quite a feat) Milly explained aboutHi. Ro. K.I. and X.A.N.A. and Lyoko and the factory and the supercomputer and the creators and how the supercomputer was back on.

Tamiya listened with wide eyes. "Really? Can I talk to Hi. Ro. K.I.?"

Milly bit her lip, unsure if she wanted to share him with her friend, but shrugged. "Sure!"

**Milly: Uh, Hi. Ro. K.I.? This is Milly's friend, Tamiya.**

**Hi. Ro. K.I.: What? Is Milly still there?**

Milly pushed Tamiya out of the way. "One minute."

She typed quickly. "Tamiya, do you have my laptop?"

Tamiya nodded, holding the requested item out.

**Milly: Hey, Milly here. I'm gonna try to connect to the supercomputer using my laptop. One minute…**

Luckily, since Milly was on the supercomputer, and had what was basically its manual surrounding her, it only took about ten minutes to start a wide area network. She made two names on the laptop, Milly and Tamiya, and did the same to the supercomputer.

"Here, Tamiya. You use my laptop for now, I'll use the supercomputer."

**Milly: Hey, Hi. Ro. K.I., we're back! My friend Tamiya's here too, she has her own account now.**

**Tamiya: Uh, hey. Do you mind if we get rid of all the wonky capitalizations and periods in your name? It'll make typing it easier.**

**Hi. Ro. K.I.: Sure! I don't even know what, if anything, it stands for. Can you do the same to my username?**

**Milly: I'm on it.**

**Hiroki: So, who's Tamiya?**

**Tamiya: I'm a friend of Milly's. We've been friends since she came to Kadic. I'm a year older, but we're in the same grade.**

**Hiroki: How are you in the same grades, then?**

**Milly: I skipped one.**

**Hiroki: This is so weird! Just a few days ago, I was only receiving some filterings of consciousness. Now I've met two new people!**

**Milly: You think this is weird for you? Imagine how strange this is for us! This doesn't even exist for us!**

**Tamiya: Milly, we have to go to class. That's why I came to get you.**

Milly looked at her friend. "You know, Tamiya, I'm right here. You can just tell me."

Tamiya blinked up, before looking embarrassed. "Right. Sorry," she laughed.

**Milly: Tamiya and I have to go to school, 'kay? I'll talk to you later. Bye!**

**Hiroki: Bye, Milly. Bye Tamiya!**

The girls logged out, and headed for the school. Instantly, Milly began to worry.

"Tamiya?"

"Hmm."

"I'm worried about Hiroki."

"Why?"

"Well, what's he gonna do now? What if he gets lonely? I couldn't tell by his tone, do you think he's mad at us for leaving? What if he thinks we're abandoning him, like his creators! What if-"

Tamiya held up her hand. "Milly?"

Her friend frowned. "What?"

"I don't even know what Hiroki _is._ I mean, we know he's an artificial intelligence, but what else do we know? What if he's lying?"

Milly shook her head. "He's not. The books had info on him. Not much, but enough to show that he _is _the AI that came before X.A.N.A., and his creators _did _shut him down only because he was not useful. I can't see why he'd lie."

Tamiya shrugged. "Are you sure?"

Milly nodded, a fervent look in her eye.

Tamiya shrugged again, knowing it would be useless to try and defy Milly. "If you say so."

The girls arrived in class a few minutes late. Tamiya could tell that Milly wasn't paying attention, but it turned out to be worth listening to.

"Tomorrow is Kadic's annual treasure hunt," Mrs. Meyer announced. "This year, it will take place in the forest. Each team of 4 will be given certain clues to start off with, and they will use those clues to navigate the forest to find more clues. The person to finish their set of clues, and get to their final destination will win a prize."

Milly perked up at this. "Great!" She whispered to Tamiya. "We can spend tomorrow at the factory! No one supervises."

Tamiya frowned. "We'll have to ditch whoever's paired up. We might not even get put together."

Milly put her hands on her hips. "We'll get put together. You can count on it."

There it was, that voice again. Milly would get what Milly wanted, Tamiya was sure of it.

.

And, as was suspected, she was right.

Milly had made enough fuss that the two girls were paired together. However, because the school liked trying to pair unlikely people together, they usually grouped the teams so that the students were from a variety of grades.

Milly and Tamiya were paired with Johnny Telwood from the sixth grade and Heidi Klinger from the eighth grade. The only group that broke this was Sissi's. She convinced Ulrich to let her in his team, and she'd get her father to pair him with two other friends, Odd Della Robbia, and Jeremie Belpois.

But for once, Milly's mind wasn't on Ulrich or his group. She had stayed up nearly the entire night before, chatting with Hiroki about Lyoko, X.A.N.A., Earth, and anything else.

Tamiya had to threaten not to pair up with her to get her red headed friend to go to sleep.

The four were brought to their drop off place by Mrs. Hertz, and left there to wait for the horn that would sound the start of the hunt.

Heidi looked slightly uncomfortable, being with a bunch of kids smaller than her. "'Kay, so, for one, I don't think we should split up. A few groups do that, and they always get lost. Plus, no phone use is allowed, so even if someone does find something in the hunt, they can't reach the others. Who agrees?"

Johnny raised his hand. Tamiya almost did, before catching the murderous look Milly gave her.

"I think we should split up into teams. That way we can cover more ground," Milly responded.

Heidi shook her head. "I'm telling you, I've asked around. A team that's split up has _never _won. I've been here for 3 years. I think I have a little more experience." She unfolded the paper, and read, out loud, the clue.

" 'In empty stone, in hollow wood

In here waits your next clue,

Find me, look inside, call your name

And I will call it back to you.' "

She glanced up. "Any ideas?"

Milly and Tamiya were quiet. Milly was stewing angrily about being forced to stay, and Tamiya was just staying quiet in support. Johnny just shrugged.

Heidi sighed. "Oh come on, this one should be easy. 'In empty stone, in hollow wood'? That obviously means that there's hollow wood somewhere in empty stone. 'Call your name and I will call it back to you', that's an echo." She was quiet for a second, before smiling. "Got it. It's a hollow log in a cave. Anyone know where a cave is?"

Johnny peered at the map. "Over there," he said, pointing.

"Right," Heidi said. "Let's move out!"

A few minutes later, Milly began to hang back. "Tamiya," she whispered. "The factory's nearby this part of the woods. I recognize the trail. Let's ditch these treasure hunters and go there."

Tamiya looked unsure. "I'm not sure, Milly. What if we get in trouble?"

Milly shook her head. "They don't care, Tamiya. Come on!"

She pulled Tamiya down a different path then the one their teammates were going.

The girls ran down the path as soon as they were out of sight of the others.

.

Heidi glanced up, her head cocked, listening. She held out a hand, stopping Johnny. "Stop. Look. Our two unwilling teammates have abandoned us."

Johnny turned around to find the path behind him empty. He glanced up at her. "We should follow them," he whispered, his eyes gleaming.

A smile crept on Heidi's face. "You read my mind, kid." She turned to him. "Follow my lead, and stay quiet."

She leapt off, gracefully, moving quickly and soundlessly. It was all Johnny was able to keep up with her, but he couldn't match her soundlessness.

The two came to the split off where Milly and Tamiya had given them the slip.

Heidi smiled. "Down here."

The two quietly headed down the path, moving quickly to catch up with the other two.

"There," Johnny whispered, pointing ahead.

The two could just be seen ahead.

Johnny glanced up at Heidi. "What now?"

"We'll follow them at a distance. Try and step where I step. Avoid any leaves. Keep the red head's hair in view, she's the most noticeable."

The two followed until they came to a break in the forest.

Ahead, Milly and Tamiya ran for what looked like an old abandoned factory.

"You wait here. This looks like their final destination. I'll follow, and see where they go, and then I'll signal you to come."

Johnny nodded, knowing that she was easily stealthier than he was.

Heidi slunk off, keeping to the shadows. She saw the girls disappear down an elevator shaft. She heard their feet clang down the ladder in the elevator.

After the footsteps stopped, Heidi quickly ran toward the elevator, and began hurriedly, silently, climbing down.

At the bottom was an elevator. An escape hatch on the top was open, and there was a knotted rope leading down. The elevator was empty.

Heidi deftly swung down the rope, and found herself in the elevator.

The door to the elevator was open, but it was stuck between levels. However, the bottom quarter of the door led to the room beyond. Heidi peered in, to see the two girls sitting there. Tamiya was on a laptop, and Milly was on a much bigger computer. They seemed to have settled down, so Heidi flew back up the rope and ladder until she reached the factory entrance.

Johnny, watching the factory intently, saw Heidi reappear.

He quickly ran over to her. "Are they at their destination?"

Heidi nodded. "Follow me."

Through the factory, down the elevator shaft, and down the rope the two went.

"There," Heidi whispered, pointing through the bottom of the door.

"What are they doing," Johnny whispered.

Heidi shrugged. "Beats me. Let's go confront them."

She slid through the door. She was able to slide through only because of her agility. The much smaller Johnny followed.

"Well well well," Heidi said, with a small smile, putting a hand on her hip, and cocking her head.


	5. Chapter 5

The two girls screamed, whipping around, eyes wide.

"Wh-wha-what are _you_ doing down here?" Milly stammered, trying to regain her composure.

Johnny bit back a grin. "At a risk of sounding clichéd, we could ask you the same question."

Heidi's smiled widened. "Actually, we will. What are you doing down here?"

Milly just started for a second, before glaring at the two intruders. "Like that's any of your business! And how'd you get down here anyway? You have some nerve bursting in here and demanding _us _to tell _you _what we're doing!"

Heidi glared back. "And you have some nerve running away in the middle of a school project to trespass in some factory!"

Johnny nodded. "You'd better tell us, or you're gonna be in trouble."

There was a pause, as the two seventh graders took this in.

"Milly," Tamiya said, quietly, "maybe we should. We don't know what we're doing. This X.A.N.A. thing might be dangerous. We have no idea of how to help Hiroki. We don't know what we're doing."

"And they could help?"

"Who knows? But we also don't have a choice."

Milly sighed, before turning away from them. "Tell them if you want," she sniffed.

Johnny nodded, and Heidi said, "Yes, please do."

Tamiya sighed. "We've got a lot of time before the treasure hunt ends, so I'll explain…"

About twenty minutes later, Heidi and Johnny looked incredulous.

"Is this true?" Johnny asked, eyes wide.

"Of course it's not," Heidi said angrily. "What do you take us for, idiots?"

Johnny surveyed the look on Tamiya's face. "Heidi, I think they _are _telling the truth. They don't look like they're lying. Besides, this is a pretty complicated lie to fabricate on the spot. And why would they have thought up a ridiculous lie so thoroughly, if they didn't think we'd believe?" He looked over at the girls. "But you're gonna have to prove it."

Tamiya shrugged. "Here, you can look here," she gestured at the supercomputer. "Hiroki's on right now, Milly will let you on."

Heidi frowned. "How do I know that this isn't some project? Or worse? This could be some online friend of yours that you guys snuck off to talk to! There's no reason we should believe that this person you guys are talking to is an AI."

Tamiya stared at her. "On a supercomputer? In an abandoned factory? Why not at our school, or on Milly's laptop? We could have gone anywhere!"

Heidi stared at them, thinking. Their story made no sense, but as Johnny had pointed out, it was either too ludicrous or too detailed to be a lie…

"Say I believe you for now," Heidi said, "I'll keep quiet. I won't say anything for now, I won't tell about you guys skipping on classes. But you're gonna have to come up with more convincing proof, soon." She cocked her head. "Do you mind if I look around? This place, this room and the one below? I won't touch anything."

Heidi wouldn't admit it, but she was already half convinced, and she wanted this to be true. Her life was boring and bland as it was, and something like this was exciting.

After Tamiya gave permission (not something Heidi liked to admit she needed), Heidi began perusing the room.

Johnny watched her. Actually, he watched all of the girls. Like Heidi, this was both exciting and unbelievable, but Johnny was a lot closer to believe them. He couldn't find a reason why they'd lie.

"Uh, can _I _talk to Hiroki?" He asked, tentatively after a few minutes.

Milly snapped her head up, but before she could talk, Tamiya cut her off. "Sure. Milly, can you make him a name?"

Milly bit her lip, irritated, but Tamiya then whispered in her ear, "Come on, Milly. We need their help. We need their support. You're trying to make them angry at us, but for Hiroki's sake, we need them to be quiet."

Milly looked ready to start yelling, but instead, she quickly made a new name on the laptop.

**Johnny: Uh, hey Hiroki. I'm Johnny, a friend of Milly and Tamiya's.**

**Milly: He's not our friend.**

**Johnny: Well, I'm a classmate of theirs…**

**Hiroki: Good to meet you! I'm not sure what's going on over in the factory. Milly wasn't saying anything, but her tone was getting bitter and angry over the computer.**

**Johnny: Me and another girl followed her to this factory. The other girl, Heidi threatened to tell if she wasn't given proof of you, well, existing.**

**Milly: ***** should mind her own business.**

**Hiroki: Milly! Please!**

**Milly: Who put censoring on?**

**Hiroki: I did! I didn't think I'd ever need it. Is it that bad?**

**Milly: It is! If they tell, it's lights out for you! Plus, we'll get in trouble. And this X.A.N.A. is at large. You're the only person who knows anything about him.**

**Hiroki: That's not true, there's a whole factory of information on him.**

**Milly: True, but X.A.N.A. can't be accessed through here. He can only be accessed directly if complex hacking programs are attempted, and even then only from the other supercomputer, where Lyoko is. And the location of such factory remains unknown! If these idiots tell, you're as good as dead, and the world could follow!**

**Johnny: So what are you guys doing to fight X.A.N.A.?**

**Hiroki: All we're doing right now, is trying to find the other factory. If we can find that, we'll know more about X.A.N.A. There are books all around with information, but there's also so much useless information, that it could take months to read one section, and only know how X.A.N.A. possesses a microwave.**

**Johnny: Possesses?**

As the group talked, Milly felt slightly more at ease. With Johnny, anyway. The younger boy seemed excited by the goings on, and after a few minutes, talked to Milly privately.

"Hey, Milly?" He whispered.

Heidi and Tamiya were below, so the two were alone.

Milly, not wanting to give away that she wasn't as angry, sniffed, "What?"

"Uh, well, you know how Heidi's said she'd tell if you can't prove? Well, I'm convinced. I'm not saying denying Heidi's story will help you completely, but if she tells, I'll say I don't know what she's talking about."

Milly's frozen glare softened slightly. "Oh. Uh, thanks, Johnny." She didn't expect him to help her, but he and Hiroki seemed to have hit off well enough.

He glanced down at the ladder which Heidi and Tamiya had disappeared down. "I think she means well," he whispered, uncertainly.

"I don't want to talk about her," Milly cut him off. "Let's get back to talking with Hiroki."

Down below, Heidi was inspecting the supercomputer, and the other cylinder.

"So, if this is the supercomputer that controls Hiroki, then what's the other thing?" She asked Tamiya.

Tamiya shrugged. "I'm not sure. Milly said it may connect Earth and the computer somehow, but she and Hiroki aren't sure."

Heidi nodded, thinking. Then she shrugged, and headed back upstairs.

"So, Johnny. What're you talking to? Is it an AI?" Her tone meant to come off as unbelieving, but instead it sounded curious.

"Umm," he said, not sure who to try and please. He shook his head, as if clearing his hesitation. He wouldn't try to please anyone, he'd only tell what he saw. "It doesn't seem like it's just some random person. The things Hiroki and Milly talk about seem… I'm not sure. I guess the best word is 'real'. Like this stuff about AIs and virtual worlds is real, and serious."

Heidi looked uncertain. "So you believe them?"

Johnny nodded, before turning back to the screen. He didn't want Heidi to start trying to convince him otherwise. She reminded him of his older sister, albeit, a much cooler version. She was stubborn, and disbelieving, and could be mean and catty to get her way. In fact, Heidi reminded him so much of his sister, down to some facial expressions, that he could read her true intentions.

It was this similarity that made him think Heidi wasn't as mean as she came out to be…

The conversation had turned to school. Milly and Hiroki had found a program that was meant to track locations on Earth in relation to their virtual counterparts. While the program ran, Milly vented about Sissi.

Finally, Hiroki cut in her rant.

**Hiroki: What do you do about her?**

**Johnny: No one really does anything about her. Some of the older students who are her age tease her back. And some of the ever older students just ignore her. But for the 7th and 6th graders, she'd invincible.**

**Hiroki: Really? It seems like it'd be easy to get back at her. You could probably take something of hers and hold it for ransom. Or wreck her room. By the sounds of it, she's pretty shallow, and really thinks herself the best thing on Earth. It shouldn't be too hard to do little things that would _really _bug her.**

Heidi had drifted over, and was reading their conversation over Johnny's shoulder.

**Johnny: I don't see how we could, though. She's always really protective of her stuff, and always locks her room.**

Heidi shrugged. "I could pick her lock. I've done so on a few rooms before. Not sure if I'd be willing to get into trouble though… Sissi pretty much leaves me alone."

**Johnny: Heidi says she can pick locks.**

**Hiroki: Cool! Too bad she can't teach us. That's be epic!**

**Johnny: Us?**

**Milly: We're working on bringing Hiroki to Earth. It doesn't seem fair for him that he's stuck in a computer and doesn't have any of the luxuries we have.**

**Johnny: What kind of luxuries?**

**Hiroki: Like sight. And sound. And every other sense. Plus, you know, feet. And arms. And eyes. As it is, I'm a consciousness that can project feelings through this interface, and can therefore, communicate with you.**

**Johnny: So you're like, floating in blackness?**

**Hiroki: Nope. Blackness is too much of a real thing to explain it. I'm not 'in blackness'. I am 'nothingness'. I'm not composed of anything.**

**Johnny: Okay. Stop trying to explain it, I think my head might explode.**

**Hiroki: Really?**

**Milly: Of course not! He's just over exaggerating.**

**Johnny: Yeah, sorry. But it'll be cool once you're on Earth! We can get back at all the jerky students at Kadic, like Sissi!**

**Milly: And Yumi Ishyama.**

**Johnny: Why Yumi? **On Earth, he blushed at the name. **She's really nice, just quiet.**

**Milly: No, she's a glory hound. She has Ulrich's affections, and doesn't even pretend she likes him back. She just toys with him! She doesn't deserve him, but he keeps running back to her! **Milly's cheeks also had a distinct blush to them.

Tamiya, who had been watching them type, but not reading, now walked over to find out what was causing them to blush.

Reading over the conversation, she frowned. "I didn't know you liked Yumi Ishyama, Johnny," she said, quietly.

His blush deepened.

**Johnny: Change of subject, **he typed quickly.

**Hiroki: Yeah. I didn't know you had a boyfriend Milly.**

**Milly: He's not my boyfriend. He's never go for someone like me. He's too busy with his snooty Japanese girl!**

**Hiroki: His loss. Do you think all Japanese are snooty?**

**Johnny: There aren't too many at our school, but the ones that go are.**

**Milly: But I'm sure you're not.**

Johnny glanced up at Milly. "Hiroki's Japanese?"

Milly snorted. "His name's Hiroki. He's not exactly European sounding."

Just then, a beeping was heard on the screen, at the same time Hiroki typed, **Hiroki: Did you get that?**

**Milly: I did! The searching program came back positive! And the other factory's not far from here! We could probably squeeze in a quick look-see before we need to report back to the school!**

**Hiroki: Alright! You go now, I'll wait for you.**

Milly looked up. "Alright, guys. Hiroki and I have found the factory where Lyoko and X.A.N.A. are. We can go there now, before we have to meet up at the school. Not saying we'll be able to find much, if it's somehow locked, but we might be able to find _something._" She glared up at Heidi. "You can't come," she stated, flatly.

Heidi shook her head. "You'd better let me come, or else."

Tamiya sighed. "Aw, come on! Let's just go! Maybe this can prove something to her, so she'll stop threatening us!"

Milly stomped her foot. "Fine! Why don't we just call the whole world to come!" She stormed off, led by a bleeping on her laptop.

As they left the factory, Johnny pulled Tamiya aside. "You know, I don't think Heidi's trying to be mean. I think she _does _believe you guys, but's afraid that if she relents, she'll be left out."

Johnny was just speculating, but truthfully, he had stumbled right on it. Heidi didn't want to cater to a 7th grader, but she didn't want to be left out.

"Well," Tamiya said, sighing. "She better try and make amends with Milly. Milly's pretty good at getting what she wants, and I think Heidi trying to thwart her is gonna cause problems. A lot of problems."

Johnny nodded, glancing up ahead at Milly, and behind them at Heidi. "I know."

The group followed Milly through the forest, until they reached another factory.

Tamiya stared up at it, feeling stupid. It was the only other factory in town, and they hadn't even thought to look there. Shaking her head, she followed Milly and Johnny across the bridge.

"Hey, Milly," she said, running to catch up with the redhead. "Remember how we chose to investigate our factory, because this one had reports of people slinking around in it?"

Milly nodded, curtly.

"Well. Now we learn that someone came here, and turned X.A.N.A. on. I'm sure it wasn't a coincidence."

Milly shuddered. "Imagine if we _had _come here to film. What if the person who turned X.A.N.A. on _is _a bad guy. We'd be as good as dead."

The group reached the elevator in the factory, which showed the signal coming from below.

The elevator reached the floor the signal emanated from. There was a code lock, but when Milly hit the open door button, it slid open.

No one in the little group expected this, and they all tensed up, worried about what they would see.

But the room seemed empty. That's not to say there wasn't anything interesting about it.

If their factory was an old dusty lab, containing endless knowledge, then this one was a high tech, futuristic laboratory. The walls were metal, and a fully activated monitor was glowing blue.

"Let's go," Milly said quickly, unnerved.

Tamiya wasn't as sure. "We came all this way, we can't leave now."

Heidi's face was as white as the others', but she volunteered to go up to the supercomputer monitor.

"A-Alright," Milly whispered, as if worried someone was there. "But don't push any buttons."

Heidi nodded, and slowly made her way to the computer. She didn't know it, but when she got close to it, the computer-mounted camera picked up her motion, and informed a certain pink haired (thought to be) AI that someone was here.

However, when the screen lit up, showing a green background, Heidi leapt out of sight of the camera.

"Hello?" A soft, slightly electronic female voice asked. On the screen, and young girl appeared. Her hair was pink, her eyes green, and she peered around, curiously. "Jeremie? Are you here?"

Heidi realized the computerized girl couldn't see her, and backed away slowly. Milly and Tamiya looked terrified, and Johnny also looked about to pass out.

The girl continued to ask if anyone was there, before shrugging.

"Must've been a glitch," she commented. She disappeared from the screen, and soon the screen reverted to its original blue.

"Let's get out of here," Johnny whispered.

The four back into the elevator, and hit the up button.

The ride up seemed to last forever. What if the person on the screen alerted the ones who turned on the computer? What if they were waiting for them, right outside the elevator?

But their worrying was for naught. When the elevator arrived at the ground floor, the group tumbled out, and bolted.

They didn't stop running 'til they reached the forest.

The group finally stopped, panting, a few yards away from the school.

Heidi was the first to speak. "Was-was that X.A.N.A.?"

There was a pause. The others seemed to be contemplating the idea.

"I don't… think so," Milly finally said. "From what Hiroki remembered from back before he was turned off, both he and X.A.N.A. were, well, male. Just in their programs, they're male. X.A.N.A. being a pink haired elf girl… well it doesn't fit, does it?"

Tamiya nodded, panting. "But in that case, then who is she?"

A loud speaker rang out from the school: **"Would the team comprised of Heidi Klinger, Milly Solovieff, Tamiya Diop, and Johnny Telwood pleaes report to the cafeteria."**

It was the principal's voice.

They paled, before racing back to the school, and heading for the cafeteria.

They ran through the school, to find the whole student body assembled in the cafeteria.

Mrs. Hertz looked over. She reached for her walkie-talkie. "There here. All accounted for."

Soon the whole faculty was there.

"Alright, alright, settle down," the principal said over the loudspeaker to the crowd of students who were buzzing over the arrival of the missing group. "You can all head back to your dorm rooms."

When everyone had filed out, Principal Delmas turned to them, frowning.

"Alright, you four, explain yourselves!" He said sternly.

They looked uncertain, before Heidi spoke up. "I'm very sorry, Principal Delmas," she said, bowing her head. "I got the others to follow us, but we got lost and lost track of time."

Johnny quickly added, "Heidi was leading us to a cave. We were supposed to take the first right off the path we started, but the path Heidi led us down, was, well, not a path."

Heidi's face was red, and she looked ready to cry. "I got them lost, I'm sorry. We tried to get back once I realized that we weren't on a path, but it just got worse."

The principal surveyed them severely. "Well, Miss Klinger, I think you realize the consequences of your actions and. However, the teaching staff _was _supposed to be on the lookout for any students who were lost, as getting lost in this forest is not hard to do. I partly blame myself and the teaching staff for the problems that we encountered. There will be no punishments, but I hope you take more care when traversing the forest."

"Yes sir," Heidi mumbled meekly backing out of the room.

The others nodded and followed her out.

Milly bit her lip, looking at Heidi and Johnny. Finally she sighed.

"Thanks," she muttered, grudgingly.

Tamiya nodded. "We'd be sunk for sure."

Heidi blew it off. "No prob."

"So," Milly said. "I was thinking we should go back to the factory this evening. Jim never notices us, he's always after Ulrich's group. And we need to figure out more about this factory."

Heidi nodded, then hesitated. "Uh, are we invited? I-I'm sorry about my behavior before. I was a jerk, and- I mean, what I did was awful! I kinda threatened your friend's life and…" She took a deep breath, running her hand through her hair. "I'm sorry."

Tamiya was fast to forgive. "It's fine. You came through when it mattered, and that's what's important."

Milly looked about to say something, before shrugging. "Yeah, what Tamiya said."

"So," said Johnny, "tonight?"

The two 7th graders nodded.

"Tonight," Milly said.


	6. Chapter 6

That night, Heidi crouched by her window.

Milly and Tamiya were talking with Hiroki, but they'd need to get to the factory to really get any information. Hiroki seemed as surprised as the others to learn that there was another AI in the Lyoko supercomputer.

Johnny was waiting for Heidi's call.

Heidi was waiting for Ulrich's group to sneak out. According to Milly and Johnny (who seemed to love spying on the group), they snuck out almost every night, and it was common knowledge that this would keep Jim occupied all night.

Heidi dialed a number as she saw three figures disappear into the forest.

"Ulrich, Odd, and Jeremie are in the forest," she reported.

"Good," Milly's voice came back. "Has Jim gone after them yet?"

"Hold on…" Heidi's eyes scanned the school yard. "Yes, I see him," she said, as she spotted the lumbering shape of their gym teacher bowl across the yard.

"Good," Milly repeated. "I'll get Tamiya, you find Johnny, we'll meet up at the factory."

"Or in the forest, if we run into each other, but let's not plan on it. The factory's easier to find. See you soon, Milly."

Heidi ran out to the boys' dorm, where she knocked twice on Johnny's door. The door opened, and Johnny slipped out.

"Let's go," he said.

Heidi nodded, smiling.

"Let's see if we can tail the other girls there without them seeing us," she whispered. She was competitive, and she knew Johnny liked a challenge. Besides, Johnny might almost be as stealthy as she was some day.

_Maybe I'll teach him to pick locks too, someday, _she thought to herself as the two disappeared into the forest.

.

Milly and Tamiya ran quietly (though not as noiselessly as the other two) through the forest, down the path that would lead to the break in the trees, from which the factory would become visible. Tamiya thought she heard an occasional rustling of the bushes, but whenever she'd hiss this to Milly, the red head would just laugh quietly, and remind her that there _were _animals living in the forest, and not to act paranoid.

When they arrived at the factory, their two friends slipped out of the shadows and Johnny tapped Tamiya on the shoulder.

She shrieked, and whipped around, to find Johnny laughing. She blushed (probably at being scared) and Milly put her hands on her hips.

"Really, Heidi, Johnny, try not to wake the whole city!"

Johnny shrugged. "Tamiya was the one who screamed, Milly. Besides, Heidi and I are gonna be the ones who actually infiltrate the other factory."

"Yeah," Heidi said, smiling. "We were just warming up!"

Milly shook her head rolling her eyes. "Whatever. Let's head down to the lab and see what Hiroki's found."

Down in the lab, Milly quickly booted up the machine.

**Hiroki: So, I've found out quite a bit.**

**Milly: Oh?**

Tamiya quickly logged in on the laptop, and Johnny did so on Heidi's laptop. Heidi opted out of chatting, to just watch.

**Hiroki: Apparently, quite a bit ago, back when the creators were turning off the supercomputer (as we're guessing) to keep X.A.N.A. in, other beings were virtualized. I'm not sure why, not even sure how accurate this is, but it's my guess that this girl you guys saw is one of those virtualized.**

**Tamiya: But she looked young. Maybe a little older than us. What would a kid be doing in the other supercomputer?**

**Hiroki: I don't know for now. Why don't you guys go a check? I though Heidi and Johnny were going to go spy on them…**

**Johnny: Yeah, we just wanted your input before we leave.**

Heidi straightened up. "I think we should go now. We're just killing time."

**Milly: Johnny and Heidi are leaving now.**

**Hiroki: Alright. Have them call you when they get there, so I know.**

Johnny logged out, and he and Heidi bid the others farewell, before climbing out of the elevator shaft, and running off, into the night.

It only took them about five minutes. Earlier they had memorized the trail, otherwise it would be very hard to get there at night.

Johnny pulled open his phone. "We've reached the factory."

"Wait," Heidi hissed, putting out an arm. She pointed.

The elevator was moving up. It came to a stop at the ground level, and four shapes made their way out.

Heidi pulled Johnny down, and the two sat there, frozen like statues, as the unidentified figures left.

She let out a breath as they vanished.

"Someone was in there, but they just left," she reported, taking the phone from Johnny.

Tamiya's voice came, worried. "Maybe we should call off the mission?"

Milly's voice was determined, however. "No. This is actually perfect, because we _know _no one's in there now, so it's actually perfect timing."

Heidi glanced at Johnny, to get his opinion. He nodded.

"I agree with Milly. We're gonna head in and look around. The first time we were there, I saw a trapdoor in the corner of the laboratory. I'd like to see what's down there."

"Okay," Tamiya said. "Just don't get spotted by the girl in the computer. We don't know if she's an ally or enemy, and we need to be careful."

"Gotcha," Heidi said. "We'll report back in ten minutes."

Heidi slunk out of her hiding place, Johnny following.

The two crept to the elevator and hit the down button.

"Hey Heidi?" Johnny whispered.

"Hmm?"

"I wonder if this elevator goes down below the lab. Our's does, but the elevator's broken."

Heidi pondered this.

"It would make getting past the virtual girl easier," he pointed out.

She nodded. "Good point. When we get there, I'll hit the down button again."

Soon the elevator reached the lab, and the down button was hit again.

It lurched back into action, taking them down another level.

She grinned. "Good thinking, kid. I'll bet their supercomputer is down here."

Once it came to a stop, the two left, but instead of finding a tall cylinder, they found three. And none looked particularly like a computer.

While Johnny investigated, Heidi snapped pictures with her phone, sending them back to Milly and Tamiya.

**These are the cylindars on the second floor. They're not SCs, are they?**

A minute later a text came back:

**No, they look more like the other cylinder in our factory.**

"Hey," Jonny whispered. "It seems like there's a crack in them. Like they open. Come see!"

Heidi walked over. Sure enough, there was a long crack going from top to bottom. She pried her nails in, and was able to half pulled on open.

"They're definitely hollow," she said, letting it slide closed.

She glanced around, not sure of how much time they had left.

"Johnny, wipe them down to make sure there aren't any finger prints."

Johnny began doing so, watching Heidi investigate a latch on the ground.

"That looks like another trap door," he commented.

She nodded, fidgeting around with it a little more, until it swung open.

Both peered down…

"Well," Johnny finally said. "That's a bit far."

Heidi nodded, snapping another picture. **Is THIS a supercomputer?**

Milly's text came back quick:

**YES! Wow, that one's HUGE! It's far bigger and probably more powerful than ours. Go down there and get more pictures!**

Heidi sighed, showing Johnny the text. "Easier said than done," she muttered.

Johnny thought a minute before shrugging. "I'll bet the elevator goes down there," he said, timidly.

Heidi let out a frustrated sigh. "Or we could just take the elevator," she commented, angry at not figuring it out herself. "That's the logical thing to do." She stood up, shaking her head. "I keep forgetting that this factory has a working one."

Quickly the two ran to the elevator. The idea that the owners of this factory had been here a few minutes ago made them a little nervous and jumpy, and they wanted to get out of there as soon as they could.

Once in the supercomputer level, they stared at it in wonder.

"Wow," Johnny finally said. "It looks like a giant, multi-layered cake!"

Heidi, already on edge because of nerves, completely cracked up, slumping to the ground, laughing.

Johnny laughed with her, and the two slumped on the floor, laughing for the next several minutes.

They were sobered up by a creak.

The two leapt to their feet, eyes wide, nervously looking around.

"Wh-what was that?" Heidi's voice wavered.

"N-not sure," Johnny whispered back, fists clenched.

Heidi swallowed hard. "Pr-probably just the old building."

"Yeah," Johnny said, though he wasn't convinced.

Neither, to be honest, was Heidi, and the two quickly took several pictures of the supercomputer.

Heidi sent them to Milly, and the two scampered out of the room, into the elevator.

Again, there was a moment of fear that there would be someone waiting for them when it came to a stop.

The feeling intensified until they were sure someone would be there, before all the emotions fled, as the elevator opened to reveal an empty factory.

Heidi glanced at Johnny. "Remember, keep to the shadows. There weren't any security cameras below, I already looked. But this place is too big and dark to be sure."

Johnny nodded, and the two, more quietly and slowly than before, left.

Back at the factory, Milly had downloaded the pictures to Hiroki. He couldn't really 'see' them the way a human could, but somehow he was still able to take them in.

**Hiroki: I agree with you. This one seems far more sophisticated and powerful than ours. But it makes sense. This one has much less on it. Just Lyoko itself takes up probably as much as everything on this computer combined! Plus the return trip program**

**Milly: Which you still haven't explained to me. You said you would**

**Hiroki: After the investigation is over, I promise, I'll try and explain.**

**Tamiya: However you explain, it still sounds like time travel.**

Just then the other two burst in.

Heidi looked over at the girls. "Did you get the pictures?" She asked, panting slightly.

Milly nodded. "Yup. Hiroki's analyzing them now." She told them what the AI had said about the other supercomputer.

Hiroki sat down on the ground next to Heidi's laptop and logged on

**Johnny: So, explain this return trip thing.**

**Hiroki: Well, it _is _kinda like time travel, like Milly said, but it's not. It doesn't transport you back in time, rather, it rewinds the Earth to a preset time. People who have a sort of scan on them don't get their mental statis rewound, so they remember, but everyone else will forget, and continue the day as normal.**

**Johnny: Wow! Really? So, does that mean that a return trip could go by at any time, and we'd never know?**

**Hiroki: Yes. It's bad, actually, because X.A.N.A. can act without you guys knowing. I think you guys need to be scanned.**

**Tamiya: How? Can our supercomputer do it?**

**Hiroki: I think so, but it would only help you if _this _supercomputer was running the return trip. As it is, the other supercomputer is the one you need to be scanned by.**

**Milly: When was the last return trip run?**

**Hiroki: About 20 minutes ago**

The room fell silent. The idea that this had all happened before…

**Tamiya: How do you know?**

**Hiroki: I've been working on a method to give myself a sort of scanned state. I have no corporal form, so I can't be scanned on Earth. Currently, all I've managed is a conscious awareness of return trips. I can tell you when they've been run, but nothing else.**

Heidi said, "I'll bet that's what they were doing in the factory. They ran out during the alternative past, did something, and ran the return trip. Then… maybe they ran back?"

Johnny quickly typed:

**Johnny: Heidi thinks the owners of the other factory may have run it, explaining what they were doing there.**

**Milly: This is wrong. I hate it. It's creepy to know something could have happened to us and we didn't know. I want to get this scan as soon as possible!**

**Tamiya: Me too.**

**Johnny: Heidi and I agree. Looks like that's our next plan of action.**

Milly glanced up from her computer. "Maybe we should go tonight? We know that they're not at the factory, maybe it would be better."

Heidi shook her head firmly. "No way."

Milly put her hands on her hips. "You're just scared."

Tamiya put her hands up to stop a brewing argument. "Look, I have to agree with Heidi here. Hear me out. We don't know anything about this other supercomputer. What if we need to use the supercomputer to run the scan? The pink haired girl sees us whenever we get near the interface. We're gonna need to come up with more of a plan than just rush into it." She took a deep breath. "I also think we need to learn the identities of the people who run the other factory. If we know that, we just know so much more. Maybe we can even look around more on their factory. But we know nothing. We're like explorers who keep poking our heads in the lair of some unknown monster."

There was a short pause, before Johnny nodded his head. "I agree with Tamiya."

Milly sighed, a look of defeat on her face. "Alright," she whispered, before turning back to Hiroki, and starting typing.

"So…" Heidi said. "Now what? Do we spy around? Does Milly hack something? Should we read these tomes?" She gestured around at the books.

Tamiya glanced around. "I think Milly should read the book about the basic scan overview. It'll give her more understanding of the program." The young redhead nodded at this, but still wouldn't face them. "Johnny, Heidi, you guys should probably just stay alert. Keep your ears alert and your eyes open for anything pertaining to X.A.N.A. or Lyoko or any of this."

Johnny nodded. "We should head back to the school," he said, nodding at the others.

Milly waved them off. "I'll stay here," she said, her words sounding slightly muffled.

Johnny shrugged, eyeing the other two girls.

Tamiya looked ready to go, and Heidi nodded them on. "I'll be there in a sec, you guys go back. It'll be better if we don't go in as a crowd anyway, we can't know whether Jim's back."

Tamiya and Johnny headed off, Johnny not noticing that Tamiya seemed quite pleased with the aspect of going back with him, alone.

Heidi waited for them to be gone, before turning back to Milly. The younger girl was still turned firmly away from her.

"Uh, hey, Milly?" Heidi asked.

"Just go away," Milly whispered, though Heidi was sure she heard tears in her voice.

"Milly, what's wrong? I seriously can't imagine why you're crying."

Milly glanced over, and Heidi saw that her eyes were glistening. She turned her head back around, but a few seconds later she sighed.

"I'm tired of always being wrong. Everything I do either is wrong or someone does better, or… I tried to get here and you guys followed us. I wanted to go to the other factory and that only worked once you went without me! I make a decision and it's always the wrong one. When you came here, you just started dictating everything! And just now, I said we should we go now, and you said we shouldn't and **one again!** I'm wrong! I'm an idiot!" Milly threw her arms in the air, and began crying.

Heidi watched her sob for a few minutes on the keyboard, which now read:

**;, **because Milly was leaning on it.

Heidi rolled her eyes, and pulled out her laptop.

**Heidi: Hey Hiroki? Has Milly been talking to you nonstop since she found you?**

**Hiroki: Well, she pauses, but-**

**Heidi: No long term breaks?**

**Hiroki: Only when she has classes.**

**Heidi: But not to sleep?**

**Hiroki: … No… Ugh, I feel like an idiot! I hadn't even thought to make sure she gets any sleep, I just thought… you know… because _I _don't need sleep… I knew _she _needed sleep, but-**

**Heidi: :P Don't worry about it. She's just exhausted now. The first night she found you she didn't get any sleep. Then last night, before the treasure hunt. And now tonight. That's three nights with no sleep. She probably hasn't gotten out of this factory much. A lot has changed in a few days. It's no wonder she's having a breakdown.**

**Hiroki: She's having a breakdown?**

**Heidi: She's just collapsed into a puddle of tears. I'm gonna take her to her room now, it's about time _someone _makes sure that she stays sane. 'Night Hiroki. I might check on a again before I hit the sack myself.**

**Hiroki: 'Kay. Night!**

Heidi logged off, and walked over to Milly.

"Hey, Mills, calm down. You're not an idiot, you're probably the smartest here. You're just a little hot headed, and that tends to have you rush into things. And not think them thoroughly. I have the same problem but, and this is _no _offense, I'm two years older than you. Not an insult, but I _am _biologically more mature than you are. You're just hitting the start of your adolescent, so you're probably gonna act a little more hot headed about things. Trust me, I'm not super at making decisions either." She shrugged. "Also, you haven't exactly been following your normal patterns. Like eating and sleeping. That might help your decision skills…"

Milly sniffed, and wiped her face with a sleeve. "I'm sorry for breaking down on you," she whispered. "You probably think I'm a baby."

"No, I think you're an exhausted person who needs some sleep and regularity to her routine. Now come on, we need to head back to the school."

Milly glanced around, before nodding and pulling herself to her feet.

Heidi led the young girl back to the dorms, and snuck in.

As she passed the boys dorm level, she heard thunderous snores. She smirked, sounding like Ulrich's group was back. Jim must be lost somewhere in the forest.

She deposited Milly at her room, but before she left, Milly said, "Hey, Heidi?"

Heidi glanced over, an eyebrow raised inquisitively.

Milly smiled sleepily. "Thanks."

Heidi grinned. "No problem." She wanted to say 'What are friends for,' but that'd be two clichés in one day.

As she walked off, she shook her head. Had it just been that afternoon that Johnny and she and followed Milly and Tamiya to the factory?

_You think time flows weirdly now, just wait 'til you start experiencing random rewinds._

The idea was both exciting and daunting. _This is my new life, _she thought. AIs, Virtual Worlds, Time Travel…

When she returned to her room, she quickly opened her laptop.

**Heidi: OK, kid, to make sure this doesn't happen again, I'm giving your little chat room a clock.**

**Hiroki: What?**

Heidi didn't answer, instead using a few basic programs that Milly had shown her.

**Heidi: There. There's a little clock here now. I can see it, can you?**

**Hiroki: The one that say 2:41?**

**Heidi: That's the one. Now, since I can't always keep an eye on our little genius, you're gonna have to. If she's up past 11:30 or up before 5:30, tell her she needs her sleep and refuse to talk to her. 'Kay?**

**Hiroki: Uh, right. I can do that.**

**Heidi: Good. Now, as you pointed out, it's late. Actually, it's early. So I'm gonna hit the hay tonight.**

Heidi logged off, and slipped into her bed. However full her mind was of the impossible things that had happened, it was late enough, and she soon slipped into a deep sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

The next few days were, in comparison, relatively calm.

Obviously nothing went back to normal after the supercomputer was found, but the kids went on their normal routines for most of the day.

When they weren't acting normal, Heidi and Johnny would spend the day eavesdropping around town for keywords: X.A.N.A., Lyoko, supercomputer, factory, AI, virtual worlds…

When Heidi wasn't with Johnny, she and Tamiya would sneak around (not in, but on the grounds around) the other factory. They'd always hide when the owners of the factory came by (so that these owners didn't know what the group had discovered) but this kept it so that the identities of the owners remained a mystery.

Still, Tamiya was working out a schedule. The place was less frequented by day than by night, so she figured that was actually a better time to attempt the scan.

When Tamiya wasn't with Heidi, she was on her own, studying the pictures Heidi had sent back, to work out a way to use the other supercomputer without being spotted by the pink haired AI.

Milly wiled away her time out of school on either her laptop or the supercomputer. She was trying to find a way to send Hiroki to Lyoko, where she was sure materializing him would be easier. She was also working on hacking into the other supercomputer. Right now, their main focus was helping Hiroki, but X.A.N.A. was also a threat. Though, they could always tell people about X.A.N.A., but only once they saved Hiroki. But Milly still worked hard to figure out how to get into the other supercomputer.

When they weren't busy with other stuff, they'd hang out in Milly and Tamiya's room (which was the biggest, it being a room for two) and chat with Hiroki and each other.

Tamiya's laptop (which had been sent away for repairs) had returned, and Johnny and Heidi took turns on hers. Sometimes they would go to the factory, and then all of them could be on at once.

This went on for about a week. Then, the next Tuesday, Heidi and Johnny went out spying on some students. Johnny claimed he had heard something, and this would be good practice (in all honesty, he just wanted to spy on Yumi). However, it paid off when Yumi's group's conversation took a strange turn.

Yumi had just said something about Jeremie working, when Odd rolled his eyes and began prattling about a materialization thing and someone named Aelita.

Then Ulrich said something that made Heidi really listen (verses passively ignoring what they were saying).

"I'll bet she gets lonely on Lyoko, though. You guys think Jeremie talks too much to her, but I'll bet it's no fun being their alone."

Then Odd laughed, saying he never knew Ulrich had such a heart, and the conversation was changed, but Heidi and Johnny stared at each other.

They had not misheard. These three (four, probably, if you counted Jeremie) knew about Lyoko.

A few more seconds passed, before they ran to Milly and Tamiya's room.

"Milly, Tamiya!" Johnny panted, the instant they got there. "You'll never believe what we just heard!"

Heidi put a hand on his shoulder, panting slightly herself. "Calm down, Johnny. You'll give yourself a heart attack."

Milly, who was only glancing up at them, looked back down at her computer. "Yeah, don't rush it," she said, dismissively.

Heidi, sensing Milly's skeptical attitude, frowned. "Hold on, though," she said. "Don't write off what we have to say yet. It _is _pretty big."

Johnny, breath regained, smiled. "You bet. We've been searching all around town for people who know about Lyoko, but we've basically been searching everywhere _but _where we should."

Heidi nodded. "Apparently, the answer was right under our noses."

Johnny's grin widened. "You'll never guess who knows about Lyoko." He didn't wait for them to guess, instead plowing on, "Yumi and her friends!"

Milly stared at him, cocking her head. A blush crept up on her face. "Ulrich too?"

He nodded, vigorously. "Ulrich, Odd, probably Jeremie too!"

Heidi gave them a quick version of what the two had heard, while listening in on Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd's conversation.

Tamiya, always practical, frowned, considering this. "What if they just heard Lyoko from somewhere else?"

Milly shook her head. "I can definitely say that's impossible. I've looked up very thoroughly, anywhere Lyoko could have popped up. It's nowhere on the internet, in any form."

"Alright…" Tamiya said, before countering with, "What if you misheard?"

Johnny frowned. "What could they have been meaning to say! Come on, Tamiya! It's not like Lyoko sounds like anything else!"

Heidi shrugged. "If it'll put your mind at ease, we can spy on them a bit longer. We're not getting anywhere, anyway. This is a lead, quite a bit more substantial than any other we've found so far."

Milly nodded, a smile finally appearing on her face. "Alright! I'll tell Hiroki!" She began to type, still talking. "This is so cool! What if, maybe, they're working against X.A.N.A.! That would be much better than working for him! Maybe we can even ally with them!" She had a dreamy look on her face, making Heidi roll her eyes slightly.

On the computer, Hiroki was excited to hear the news.

**Hiroki: I'm glad they finally had some luck. It seemed strange, you know, how there have been no reports of any form of attack formulated by X.A.N.A., and yet, he keeps experiencing energy spikes. It feels as though he _is _attacking, but nothing's been happening. This may help explain it. If these students are combatting him, then…**

**Milly: Then what?**

**Hiroki: Well, it would seem they're keeping him under lock and key, completely stuck in Lyoko. But that can't happen, because I'm feeling malicious energy from him, as if he's still attacking.**

**Milly: Now?**

**Hiroki: No no. Just in general. It feels like we should have heard something.**

**Milly: …. That is strange.**

There was a pause, before Hiroki messaged back,

**Hiroki: No, wait, there _is _an explanation. If these students you're talking about fight X.A.N.A., but run a return trip, it would explain the lack of activity.**

Tamiya was reading over Milly's shoulder. "I don't know. It doesn't seem likely. Why didn't they just turn it off? How can a bunch of kids like them fight X.A.N.A.? It sounds like _they_ overheard someone talking about this, and are just repeating what they heard."

Milly brushed her off. "Stop being so doubting."

Tamiya frowned. "I'm not being doubting! I'm being realistic. One of us has to think out what we're doing!"

**Hiroki: But who is Aelita?**

**Milly: I don't know. They said she "gets lonely on Lyoko". Maybe she's the pink haired girl?**

**Hiroki: Maybe, but we still have no reason as to why she's there…**

Heidi, who had read this last part, stood up from where she was sitting on the bed. "You guys are all right. We need more information. I think that it seems suspicious that every time we sneak out to the other factory, we do so when Ulrich's group does. Then, surprise surprise, four people are always sneaking into the other factory. Then, we always go back after the four people, and Ulrich's group, or at least Odd, is fast asleep. This happens every time. Tonight, I'm gonna follow them when they sneak out."

Before Johnny could say anything, she turned to him. "I think you should stay here, kid. Nighttime's tough, because you have to be far more quiet. Nothing at night really makes much sound, so you have to act accordingly. Plus, people are more alert at night, and it's easier to lose someone in the dark, so you have to keep fairly close."

Seeing Johnny's disappointed face on being left out of a big excursion, she added, "Hey, know what? I'll teach you how to pick a dorm lock this afternoon. You can check out their rooms while I'm gone."

He perked up brightly at this.

"Remember," Tamiya told her. "If you _do _go in the factory, take more pictures. I'm working on a plan to get us scanned, undetected."

Heidi threw her a salute. "Gotcha! Come on, Johnny. I've got a bit of work to show you before tonight."

Fortunately, Johnny's fingers were nimble, and he was a fast learner. He wasn't as good as Heidi. 8 years of practicing on her older brothers had given her a finesse only time could manage, but he would suffice.

"Remember," she told him, "be quiet. No one's gonna be there for quite a while, so take your time. The only way you'll be spotted is if you make noise and attract attention to yourself. Also, though Jeremie's room would probably hold the most clues, your better to do Odd's and Ulrich's. Jeremie's, well, smarter than them. He's more likely to notice, and get suspicious, if his lock is in any way damaged."

Johnny nodded. "If you say so. But I won't mess up the lock. And Jeremie's always in his room, his has to have more info."

"And more safeguarding. I wouldn't be surprised if he changed his lock to be a more durable one. And then you'd be sunk."

Johnny sighed. "Alright. I'll do Odd and Ulrich's."

Heidi grinned. "Cool. I'll txt you when I'm sure they've gone in the factory." Heidi wanted to make sure that the group really _was _headed for the factory. It wouldn't do to have them only step out for a minute, and return to find Johnny picking their locks.

Although, Heidi and Johnny were pretty certain that Ulrich's group was headed for the factory, Milly and Tamiya weren't. But Heidi knew they'd prove them wrong…

.

That night, Milly worked on her laptop. Tamiya had dozed off, waiting, and, although Hiroki really _was _trying to make sure Milly got to sleep, he found it hard to focus on the time when talking to her.

At approximately 2:30 in the morning, Heidi called.

"Hello?" Milly answered.

She was greeted with a sigh. "I knew you were still awake. Tell that little AI that he and I will be having a word about taking care of our resident genius."

Milly just blinked. "Wha-"

"Never mind. Anyway, consider our suspicions… confirmed."

Milly blinked. She honestly had not expected Ulrich's group to actually be part of this. "You-you saw them go into the factory?"

"Yup. Not just that, they went in the elevator, and went all the way down to the lab floor. I heard their conversations, I was close enough. They were talking about, oh, X.A.N.A., Lyoko, crabs, kankralets, megatanks, return trips. Hell, what weren't they talking about. I took the pains of recording their conversation. I'll give it to you when I get there."

Milly was just absorbing this, when Johnny slipped in. "Hey, Milly, look what I found!"

His entrance woke up Tamiya, who, after a few minutes of blinking dazedly, came over to see what he was doing.

He held out his phone, which contained pictures and diary entries. "These were in Odd and Ulrich's room. I think they're pictures of them on Lyoko!"

Milly flipped through the pictures. "Wow," she whispered. Along with descriptively drawn pictures of the monsters, she also found pictures of Ulrich's group, in strange costumes. Of course, she had read that when virtualized, the supercomputer took several characteristics in mind to assure maximum benefits to the person.

"I wonder who drew these," she said, just as Heidi burst in.

"So, what'd _you _find?" She asked Johnny.

He showed her the pictures, while she recounted Ulrich's group's conversation. The four had been talking about fighting X.A.N.A.'s monsters, and a recent attack on the school, where two trains had been possessed by X.A.N.A. to crash into each other. Then they talked about Aelita. Jeremie Belpois kept insisting that she couldn't be on her own, and that the others would just have to make room in their schedules to help her.

That was all Heidi heard before they entered the elevator.

"So," said Tamiya, who was still looking at the pictures. "Who do you think this Aelita is? Is she the pink haired girl we saw in the computer?"

Johnny frowned. "She has to be, doesn't she? I think she has something to do with the creators. I mean, we don't know anything about her, for all we know, she _could __**be **_one of them. She looked young, but all we saw was a glimpse of her as we tore out of the factory. And we only saw the top of her, and she was all digitalized."

Heidi frowned, contemplating. "Well, she's probably not an AI. Hiroki never said anything about a third AI. There are nothing in the books about a third AI, is there?" This last question was directed at Milly.

"No," Milly said. "Absolutely nothing. There was very little about Hiroki, but nothing about Aelita. And Hiroki said nothing about her."

"Speaking of Hiroki," Johnny said. "What does he think about all this?"

"Oh, right," Milly said. "I'm telling him right now.." She quickly began recounting everything that had happened to Hiroki.

**Milly: Isn't this cool! Hey, maybe we can even join them! We have the information, and they have the skill! I wouldn't be adverse to working with Ulrich, and being considered an equal.**

**Hiroki: I don't think we _should _team up. We still don't know anything about them. They might have teamed up with some other group, to fight X.A.N.A. We also don't know if they might perceive, well, _me _as a threat. If their main enemy is an AI, then for all we know, they could jump to conclusions about _any_ AI. All we know, is four kids from your school are fighting X.A.N.A., but in the whole scheme of things, that's actually very little.**

**Milly: Well, I think we _could_! You're just being paranoid and selfish! Not everything is about _you_! Maybe it would be better for _us _if we teamed up! Why do you think _you're _more important?**

Tamiya looked at what Milly just wrote. "Gosh, Milly. What's up with you?"

Johnny glanced over at Milly, who was glaring at the computer. Hiroki hadn't responded. "I think she really wanted to work with Ulrich's group." His cheeks reddened slightly. "I know I wouldn't have been against it. But Milly, Hiroki's right. You can't trust people who might be willing to shut him down, just for… just for-"

Tamiya rolled her eyes. "Just for some guy, who, honestly Milly, doesn't even notice you! I don't want to sound mean, Milly, but Hiroki's our friend. And he really cares for us, because we're his friends, and he's ours. You can't sacrifice him so that someone will notice you!"

Heidi snorted. "Especially not Ulrich Stern. He has a pretty face, but his group are not exactly welcoming. I'm willing to bet that, on the off chance that his little elitist group doesn't blow us off when we first approach them, they just treat us like little sidekicks. We're never gonna be part of 'them', Milly. We'll only be treated like inferiors." She shrugged. "It's just how they roll. Think about their members. Belpois, Ishyama, and Stern are all, well, loners. And Della Robbia might be nice, but he's not exactly welcoming."

Milly's shoulders slumped. "I-I guess so," she whispered, before glancing over at the screen. Hiroki had still not responded.

**Milly: Uh, hey, Hiroki?**

**Hiroki: Yeah?**

**Milly: I'm sorry. I really am. I was just… I don't know. I shouldn't have yelled or called you selfish, _I _was being selfish.**

**Hiroki: It's okay, Milly. I know what it's like to like someone who doesn't like you back.**

Johnny looked over at Milly. _In a perfect world, _he thought, _Ulrich and Yumi would break up. I could be with Yumi, and Milly would be with Ulrich. _He frowned, thinking. _Or maybe Milly would be with Hiroki._

Milly sighed, leaning back in her chair. She noticed the pensive looks on the other's faces. "So, what happens now?"

Tamiya, who had changed the pictures on Johnny's phone to show the ones in the other factory, smiled, as she finally was able spot what she was looking for. "We scan ourselves. I've come up with a, deceivingly simple, plan to allow us access to the other supercomputer."

**Hmm… Should I virtualize them, or just scan them? I wasn't planning on actually sending anyone to Lyoko (except for Hiroki…)**


	8. Chapter 8

Tamiya's plan _was_ simple. Aelita would spot them if they got close enough to the camera on the supercomputer monitor. The camera was spotted in the normal spot, just above the screen.

The plan was to have Heidi sneak around the monitor, and put a cloth over the camera. Then, they could get as close as they needed.

"But remember," Tamiya said, "we still need to be quiet. She'll hear you if you're too loud, and then she may be able to contact Ulrich's group, and then we're dead."

"Or at least Hiroki is," Johnny said, nervously.

"Don't worry," Heidi and Milly said at the same time.

They paused, a smile creeping on Heidi's face as Milly giggled.

"I'll be quiet working the program," Milly promised.

"And I won't make a sound covering the camera," Heidi vowed.

Tamiya nodded. "Good. Heidi, when is Ulrich's group all in class?"

"The 8th graders have double science on Thursday morning, and I know as a fact the 9th graders have a field trip."

"Good," Tamiya said again. "Heidi, you should stay in class for the first 15 minutes, then excuse yourself. Make sure Ulrich's group is in class, all of them. Johnny, you make sure Yumi gets on the bus."

Johnny nodded, happily, and Tamiya frowned, seeming to want to take her order back. Then she sighed, and shook her head. "Yeah, that's your mission Johnny. Milly and I are gonna be hiding by the other factory. When you're sure that Ulrich's group is occupied, head out, and meet us there."

Heidi and Johnny nodded. "Gotcha," Johnny said.

,

The next day, Milly and Tamiya waited by the factory. Milly was worrying.

"I really really don't know, Tamiya!" She said, pacing back and forth. "Hiroki and I were pretty sure that I'll know where to find the scanning program, but what if something happens? What if it's been moved? What if it has locks on it!"

"Milly, Milly, relax!" Tamiya said. "We're aware of the risks, but these are risks we have to take. If things don't go right we'll try another time! But there's no sense in freaking yourself out over it, or we're gonna fail for sure!"

Just then, Johnny showed up.

"Alright, the 9th graders' bus has left, with Yumi on it!" He reported triumphantly.

"Good," Tamiya murmured.

Milly was still pacing. "What if the AI sees us?" She stopped pacing. "I don't think we should go," she said decisively. "There's nothing to suggest that your plan will work! Besides, we don't _need _to be scanned, it's not _that _important! Surely not important enough to risk Hiroki's life! So we shouldn't-"

She was interrupted by Heidi's arrival.

"They're in class, and I have every reason to believe they'll stay there. Also, I brought this," here she hoisted a thick piece of black cloth, "to hold over the camera, so Miss Aelita can't see us."

She looked at Milly, who was busy hyperventilating.

"What's eating at her?" Heidi asked.

Tamiya rolled her eyes, wearily. "She's freaking out about the mission and is convinced that Hiroki's gonna die because of what we do."

Heidi turned to Milly, mouth open to rebuke the young girl, but Johnny tugged on her sleeve.

"Hey, let's just go. She _has _to follow us, or we'll run a suicide mission, and we're all doomed."

Milly opened her mouth to protest, but the others turned and made their way to the elevator.

"Hey!" Milly called. "Hey, guys! I'm serious, we shouldn't do this!" She ran to keep up with them.

"I'm serious, what if something goes wrong?" Her pleas fell on deaf ears as her friends, tired of listening to her worries, entered the elevator.

"You coming or not?" Heidi asked, hand wavering over the button.

"I-" Milly faltered, before running in. "This is a big mistake guys," she said, sulkily.

"Whatever," Johnny and Heidi said at the same time.

"Just do what you're supposed to do, and everything will go as planned."

"But-" Milly began, before once again being cut off as the elevator opened.

The group fell silent, staring at the expansive room in front of them.

Heidi glanced around the room, before taking her cloth and silently slinking around the peripherals of the room.

Then, quietly, once she was behind the screen, she snuck up and pulled the cloth over the screen.

Aelita once again, appeared on the screen, confused by the change in her view of the lab.

"Hello? Jeremie? Why has the screen gone dark, have you pulled something over it?" She has sensed that something had changed, but she couldn't tell what. It seemed dark.

However, this proved that she _couldn't _see, so Milly tiptoed up to the interface.

She began typing, rifling through programs until she found the one she needed.

"Alright," she whispered. "I can't find the basic scan. But I _have _found the basic virtualization, which works as a scan as well. It'll take longer, but I'm worried about setting off one of the thousands of alarms that are on here."

Heidi glanced at the others for their opinion.

"Sounds good," Tamiya whispered back.

Milly nodded. "Good. You two," here she addressed Tamiya and Johnny, "go to the scanners. I'll send you in."

The two nodded, and headed down.

Milly pulled up the virtualization and typed in the coordinates. It would take longer due to the fact that she chose not to use the vocal activation. She took a deep breath.

"Okay, Heidi," she whispered. "Can you secure that there?"

Aelita may have quieted, probably assuming that there was just a system glitch.

Heidi frowned, as she fixed the cloth in place. "If Aelita's in Lyoko, where'd you send the others?"

"The forest sector. Aelita is in the desert sector. Still, I think we should get in and get out quickly. She'll notice if we're there too long."

Heidi nodded, and the girls quickly headed to the scanners…

A few seconds later, they had joined their friends in a world unlike any they had ever seen.

The trees stretched tall, and the ground seemed to hover over an orange ocean, which was far below.

However, they were almost as busy gawking about their surroundings as they were about their appearances.

Milly's outfit was fiery red, the skirt ending at her knees. From her wrists, extending to her feet, were two long pieces of cloth, creating wing-like flaps. Her hair was down, and orange and yellow flame-like streaks ran through them.

Johnny had a silver chainmail-like outfit on, with the lower legs and upper arms in forest green, and a broad sword over his shoulder. The outfit looked durable, but it moved fluidly whenever he did.

Tamiya had a long black robe on over a midnight blue tunic. She held a tall wooden staff in her left hand, and there were small, glowing blue orbs at her waist. Her hair was also down, like Milly's, only it was longer, falling to the small of her back.

Heidi wore a green dress with an empire waist and pleated skirt which fell just above her knees. She had long green glove which had a flower pattern, and a large floppy green hat. Her shoes were a slightly darker green, and she had white tights on. She had two daggers in her belt.

"Whoa," Johnny whispered, looking around at his outfit.

Tamiya spun slightly, admiring her cloak, while Milly waved her arms, causing her wings to catch the wind slightly.

Heidi looked disgruntled. "Ok, so a phoenix, a mage, a knight, and… what? Why am I dressed like a girl scout?"

Milly flexed her hands, and firey claws shot out. "Wow," she breathed.

Heidi frowned at them, as they admired their attire. "Ok ok, can we go now? Miss Aelita's bound to notice us! What happened to being worried, Milly? We're in the most precarious situation we've been in since this started, and your just gawking at your outfit!"

Though Heidi had a point, it was hard to feel threatened or enclosed in this open, sunny space, with its tall trees extending up toward the bright sky.

"Alright, enough of this," Heidi muttered, before throwing a dagger at Johnny, causing him to yelp with surprise, before disintegrating.

Tamiya bit her lip. "Right, sorry, got distracted."

She raised her staff, pointed it at Milly, who extended her claws, pointing them at Heidi, who's dagger was pointed at Tamiya.

"One."

"Two."

"Thre-"

The three girls were sent back to Earth as their weapons flashed.

Johnny was standing, waiting for them.

"Gee, Heidi, you could've warned me."

"Sorry," she said, still looking unhappy. "You were too busy gawking at your 'awesome' outfit."

"It was pretty cool," Tamiya said.

Milly sighed. "I wonder what Hiroki looks like on Lyoko."

Heidi rolled her eyes. "Well, we'll never find out if you don't get rid of the evidence that we were here…"

Milly blushed, nodding. "Right, let's go."

She and Heidi headed up to the lab, and Milly quickly erased their Lyoko avatars. They still had scanned status, but someone would really have to look to find it. Later, her and Hiroki would get rid of it more thoroughly.

After she finished, she wiped down the keyboard to get rid of fingerprints, and then backed away.

Once she met up with Johnny and Tamiya in the elevator, Heidi pulled away the cloth, and slunk off.

Sensing the change, Aelita once again appeared on the screen, confused and asking for Jeremie.

They waited for her to disappear before hitting the button and leaving the other factory.

"Now what?" Johnny asked, as they returned, panting, to a clearing in the forest.

Tamiya gave a shudder. "This is gonna be weird. Things are gonna happen that we normally would have forgotten, but it's gonna seem like they just suddenly happened out of nowhere! What kind of attacks will there be?"

Milly shook her head. "I don't know. I guess we'll see soon enough."

"Well," Heidi said, somewhat shortly, "right now our biggest issue is not getting in trouble in school. At least we know how _they _were able to run off in the middle of class. Time travel." She gave a sigh, and turned on her heel, marching back to school.

"What's she miffed about?" Milly asked, bemused.

Johnny snorted. "I think she's upset about her lame costume."

Tamiya snorted with laughter. "Yeah, she sure makes a fashion statement with that hat."

The three younger students headed back to school, giggling about their slightly superior acting friend's humbling outfit.


	9. Chapter 9

A few days passed uneventfully.

Milly and Hiroki got rid of more evidence of their excursion into Lyoko, and got back to work helping Hiroki.

Heidi and Johnny caught back up on their homework, and Heidi spent her afternoons 'training' Johnny, as well as picking up a few bits of info off of Ulrich's Group. With Tamiya in mind, Heidi made sure that Johnny's espionage trips didn't involve Yumi.

Then, one day, which seemed like any other, something strange happened.

The group didn't notice anything at first. The only suspicious behavior happened when Yumi shattered a glass after an argument with Sissi, but Tamiya just used that as an excuse to why Yumi had too short of a temper, which started a bit of an argument between them, with Milly and Tamiya arguing that she was no good, and Johnny protesting that she was.

Heidi just commented that "anyone who manages to attract Ulrich has to have _some _redeeming points. He could go for anyone, you know."

Later Heidi was talking to a classmate about an assignment she had missed, when Sissi and her friends began talking right behind them about the school collapsing. It seemed so out there, even for Sissi, that she didn't think much of it, and dismissed it as nothing.

Nothing serious _did _happen until much later.

The girls were in their room, taking a break from their work, as Hiroki was running a few programs.

Heidi was in an extra science class, working to make up some lost time before a big test. Johnny was doing homework. An announcement came on over the intercom. It called for an evacuation due to a structural danger.

Heidi stood up, and evacuated with the rest of the students.

She glanced around for the others, but couldn't find them.

Finally she spotted Johnny, but she hadn't seen the younger girls.

_Where are they? _She thought. _They should have left by now…_

_._

Meanwhile, in their room, the two girls were listening to their music loudly with their earbuds. They had missed the alert entirely, and were just relaxing.

Suddenly the door burst open.

Milly jerked up. "Huh? Didn't anyone ever teach you to knock, huh?" It was Odd Della Robbia, holding his dog under one arm.

He quickly warned the girls that the school was unsteady and could collapse at any minute.

Milly didn't believe him, but Tamiya shot her a look that said, _Better listen to him. He might know something, he does fight X.A.N.A. after all._

So the two girls got up and began to follow him, but just as they got to the stairwell, his dog started barking.

"Hey," Tamiya asked, "what's wrong with your dog?"

Then, the building began to shake, and pieces of the roof began to cave in.

Milly felt her heart quicken, and she latched onto Tamiya, who in turn, grabbed onto her.

The two girls gave small shrieks, as they tried to steady themselves.

When Tamiya finally opened her eyes, she saw the entire stairwell was collapsed.

The two girls stared at it, panicked, eyes wide, but Odd didn't lose his composure.

"About face," he ordered them, before heading down the corridor they had come from, but stopped short when he saw that that path too, was wrecked. A large crack separated the two parts of the hall.

Just then Odd got a call.

He talked quickly, summing up his situation, before adding, "No, don't wait, go to Lyoko."

Milly eyed Tamiya, as both girls reached the same conclusion. This attack on the school was brought on by X.A.N.A.

Just then the dog started to bark again, and before any of them could prepare, the ground under them lurched violently, sending all three to the floor, as the building began to tilt.

Odd's phone slid down the slanted path, and down the crack in the floor, which had by now widened to a large gap…

Outside, Heidi stared at the building, which was now in two spots.

The teachers had taken numerous attendances, and they were convinced.

Milly and Tamiya were stuck up in the building with Odd Della Robbia.

Johnny also looked up, in horror. "They're gonna be alright, right?" He asked.

Heidi just stared, at a loss for words. She had never felt this kind of terror.

.

Inside, the three clutched to parts of the wood, waiting for the firemen to arrive.

"Oh, why aren't they here yet," Milly wailed.

Suddenly the ground began to shake again, loosening their grip and tilting the floor up even steeper.

The shaking came to a stop, and they were able to grab on again, but Odd yelled up at them that they weren't gonna be able to stay like this, and that they'd have to slide across.

Tamiya yelled that he was out of his mind, the drop was at _least _30 feet.

"Trust me, OK? I can't tell you how yet, but we're gonna make it! In the meantime, we've got to get across where we'll be safe!"

Milly wondered if Odd was talking about Lyoko. She didn't like the idea of sliding down toward a drop with a vague hope of success.

But before either girl could protest, Odd slid down.

"No!" Tamiya cried out, as he flew up in the air. But he managed to land safely, his dog still in his grasp.

He turned up to the girls, smiling slightly.

"Now come on!" He called. "I'll catch you!"

Tamiya looked down at the drop that separated her from Odd. Whatever she may think about Odd's group, she was thankful for them now.

She released her grasp on the floor, and began flying down the passage way toward him.

Just as she reached the gap, she flew over it, and squeezed her eyes shut.

She felt herself falling through the air and right into Odd's arms.

He put her down and turned to Milly, while Tamiya caught her breath.

"Ok, your turn Milly!"

Milly was petrified, her hands grasping on.

"No, I'll never make it!" She wailed, fear lacing her yells.

"Sure you will, come on!"

Milly clung on, but as the ground began to shake again she shrieked as her grasp was wrenched off.

She screamed as she began to plummet toward the crack. The building's shaking grew stronger, and Odd rushed forward.

Then she landed, but for one heart-stopping moment, she lost her balance, and waved her arms desperately to regain her balance and stop from plummeting into the hole behind her.

Tamiya watched, frozen in horror, as her friend lost her balance and began to fall…

Milly tried desperately to get her balance back, but she felt gravity winning.

She gave a scream, when suddenly, Odd's hand appeared out of nowhere, grabbing her flailing wrist.

He pulled her up, the same encouraging look on his face. "Good going, girls! Ok, let's get out of here."

They started to run again, and Milly was just starting to feel that they were gonna be ok, when Odd stopped again.

This time it wasn't a drop, but it was just as hindering. A huge pile of debris, fallen from the roof above, blocked their only escape.

.

Outside, Heidi and Johnny watched as the school shifted, falling further apart. The firemen were unable to get in.

"Oh God," Heidi whispered. "Please, if they get out, I'll never be rude to them again."

Johnny just watched, open mouthed. _What was going on?_

_,_

The building around the three began to crumble. Parts fell from the ceiling, crashing around them.

The girls clutched onto Odd, but as the building crumbled, a large rock hit Milly on the head.

She crumpled to the ground, blinking dazedly.

Above the sound of breaking, crashing, and falling, she thought she heard Tamiya scream.

Then she saw a bright light, rushing to envelop them…

,

Milly blinked her eyes.

She was standing in the middle of math class, and everyone was staring at her.

Tamiya, who sat next to her, also looked dazed.

Mrs. Meyer motioned for Milly to continue, but she had no idea what she was supposed to do.

"Um…" she closed her eyes, trying to remember.

Then it clicked. She had volunteered to answer a math question in class earlier, and now she was reliving that.

"Oh, right. A times O, if J times Y equals L."

Mrs. Meyer nodded, and Milly sat down, glancing over at Tamiya.

"That white light," she whispered. "Was that a return trip?"

After the class, the group met up. Milly was about to tell them everything that happened when Heidi held a hand up.

"We need to take this somewhere private," she said, before taking them up to her room.

When they arrived, Johnny looked confused. "Why can't we talk about this outside?"

Heidi raised an eyebrow. "What if Ulrich's group saw or heard us? Remember, the only thing, to them, that should change is _their _reactions. We should be unaware of the fact that all of this happened before, we should act like everything is happening for the first time. Which means we need to act the way we did the first time."

She let out a breath. "It was freaky. One minute the school is collapsing into the ground, then there's a flash of white light, and I'm sitting in Mrs. Hertz's class. I'm glad I wasn't expected to do anything. But it was weird. Belpois wasn't there, he never is, but Stern looked really unhappy. Really unhappy. Della Robbia didn't know what to make of it, but Stern whispered something in his ear, and he also looked really upset." She shrugged. "But whatever. What happened with you two?" She asked the girls. "Johnny thought you were gonna _die, _he was freaking out."

Johnny rolled his eyes. "Yeah, and Heidi was just chilling, totally fine. She knew you'd pull through." He rolled his eyes.

Heidi blushed. "Whatever," she muttered. "Just tell us what happened!"

Milly and Tamiya took turns telling what happened, which mainly involved Milly working herself up about it, and when her speech has gotten too high and fast to understand, then Tamiya would cut in and translate.

Heidi let out a shaky breath.

Johnny also looked shaken.

Tamiya took a deep breath. "Ok, guys, here's the thing. I think that these things have happened before. Horrible, life threatening things. They've happened to all of us. But we've just never remembered, so it was like it never happened. But now we remember them, so suddenly, it's like they're happening."

"So what's your point?" Heidi asked.

Tamiya shrugged. "This'll happen again. Probably a lot. Until X.A.N.A. is shut down. And here's another thing. The way Odd acted while we were stuck up there… I don't think return trips can resurrect people. If you die, you're dead. Which brings us to the point that, if Odd wasn't there, Milly and I would have almost certainly died."

"And…" Johnny prompted.

"Well, I was thinking, they can't be omnipotent. They can't always know when someone's gonna be in danger. They can't both fight on Lyoko and on Earth and never make a mistake. They're only kids, like us. Maybe a little older, but if they found their supercomputer a few weeks before we found ours, then they're still fairly new at this. I think we should help them." She held up a hand, stopping Heidi, who was opening her mouth to protest. "I know, we've already talked about this. But I don't mean team up with them. I mean, when there's trouble on Earth, look around. Find people who are in danger and help them."

There was a pause. Milly had a frown on her face, as did Heidi, though Heidi's was more puzzling while Milly's was more pouty.

Finally Milly sighed, and crossed her arms. "I guess we have to, right?"

"But won't Ulrich's group notice if we start acting all, I don't know, knowledgeable about X.A.N.A.'s attacks?"

Tamiya nodded, shrugging. "We'll have to make sure they're not around. They go to Lyoko most of the time, I'll bet. Only one would stay here, if any. It shouldn't be too hard to help a few people out. Make it a little easier. They have enough on their shoulders."

Johnny nodded, enthusiastically. "I like it. We can be, like, Earth patrol!"

Heidi smiled, resisting rolling her eyes. "It's a good idea, actually. Johnny and I can definitely help. You two too, though you'll also be good at analyzing the situation, and trying to find where and how X.A.N.A.'s attacking."

Milly nodded. "Good plan. I think Hiroki can sense the attacks. He hasn't been telling me, because it never mattered before, but now I think it would probably be better if he did start telling us when X.A.N.A. attacked." She paused, before adding, "Actually, speaking of X.A.N.A. attacks, Hiroki and I have discovered something actually kinda scary." She took a deep breath. "X.A.N.A. has implanted some form of mental virus in someone's head. We don't know who, or how, but we do know that its purpose is to somehow mutate certain aspects of that person's personality, until they become a complete slave of X.A.N.A.'s. Hiroki thinks that, if something isn't done about it, this mutation will grow until that person has become someone else completely. And by then, it _will be _irreversible."

The other three stared at her for a moment, in silence.

Then Heidi spoke up. "Gee, think you might have told us sooner?"

Milly shook her head, her eyes alight with worry. "We weren't even sure until a few days ago. Hiroki had sensed that X.A.N.A. was building something, but what was anyone's guess. He's noticed that as each return trip goes by, X.A.N.A. gets stronger, nearly double. X.A.N.A.'s been using some of this power surge more and more to mutate this person's mentality. Hiroki thinks that, for now, this person will lie dormant, until their mind is mostly gone. Once it's almost gone, they'll attack someone from Ulrich's group. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be able to detect them until then. Though the mutations will create noticeable changes in their personality, we can't go around blaming someone just because they're acting strange. We'll have to wait until they act in a notably violent way."

"Won't it be too late?" Tamiya asked, worry lacing her voice.

Milly shook her head. "I don't think so. We should have just enough time to fix it before the person's true self is completely lost to the mutation."

Johnny nodded. "Right. But we can still be on the lookout for people who are acting different, right? What parts of their mind do you suppose it'll manipulate?"

Milly bit her lip, thinking. "We're not sure, but let me put it this way, the virus only mutates, it doesn't control. So it's gotta work on things the person already has, like paranoia, or contempt, or jealousy… Say it was Sissi. The virus would play on her jealousy of their group, infatuation of Ulrich, and curiosity about their secret. Probably could play on her superiority, and the fact that she thinks everything should go her way. It would also mutate and exaggerate her meaness." Milly looked thoughtful. "In fact, I bet it's her!"

Heidi held up a hand. "Whoa, there. Sissi? Come on, X.A.N.A. could do better."

"No, think about it!" Milly protested. "She's always trying to hurt their group, pull them apart! She's always trying to foil them! She-"

"Hasn't changed," Heidi cut in. "She's the same she's always been, petty, certainly, but never malicious, and certainly not dangerous. She's acting pretty much the way she always does."

"I'm gonna go with Heidi on this one," Tamiya said. "But it doesn't matter right now. It's not gonna matter at all, unless you find a way to reverse it."

Milly nodded, slightly mollified. "You're right, Tamiya. If I don't find a way, everyone's gonna be in trouble. I'll probably need Hiroki's help, but I'm gonna head for the factory now. There's gotta be something about mental mutations and stopping them."

She stood up and headed out.

Once she got to the factory, she quickly pulled out her laptop.

**Milly: Hey Hiroki! You'll never guess what happened!**

Before he had a chance to respond, she hurried on,

**Milly: X.A.N.A. attacked!**

**Hiroki: Well, yeah, I _knew _that. I can sense them, remember?**

**Milly: Hiroki, it was awful!**

She launched into a detailed description of everything that happened over the last day. Or, at least, the first time through.

**Milly: And then, when I thought we were gonna die, I was lying there on the floor, and there's a white light, and I thought I was dead, I really did. Then, the next thing I know, I'm standing in the middle of math class, being called on! It was intense, the whole thing! And what's worse, we've just decided that the best plan of action is to save people from X.A.N.A. attacks. Which means we've gotta run _into _these attacks. Which is, you know, the right thing to do, but I honestly don't _want _to. That's not to say I won't, but it'll take a while to get used to it.**

She paused, waiting for him to type back. When he didn't, she quickly typed.

**Milly: Hiroki? Sorry, I talked too long.**

**Hiroki: No no, I just don't like it. I mean, Heidi and Johnny, they can hold their own, according to what you've said. Even Tamiya's older than you. I'm just worried. You should probably stick to the computer.**

Milly, always the one to jump to conclusions, took this the wrong way.

**Milly: It _that _what you think? That I'm just some helpless girl! I can hold my own perfectly well, thank you very much! What do you know, anyway! For all you know, I could be 5 feet tall! You're just jumping to conclusions, thinking I'm this helpless little girl!**

**Hiroki: No no, it's not that! It's just… I don't know. I worry about you guys. I can't be there on Earth with you, and I feel like I'm useless here. I wish there was _something _I could do.**

**Milly: There is. You and I need to find a cure to the mental mutation that's on someone out here.**

**Hiroki: You've told the others?**

**Milly: Yeah. We can count on Johnny and Heidi to look around for it, but I'll bet Tamiya figures it out first.**

**Hiroki: Oh, so it's a race now? Well, I'll bet we find 'em first!**

Milly grinned, and the two set to work finding a cure, as well as scanning to find out who their target was.

One problem was, the two tended to get distracted. Milly would write up or find a scanning program, Hiroki would run it, and then they'd chat until the results came back. Unfortunately, they would often forget to check the program, for up to an hour, before remembering what they were doing there.

They were making progress, but it was hard to balance all their jobs: finding this person, finding a cure, materializing Hiroki, helping fight X.A.N.A…

Finally Milly threw her arms up.

**Milly: OK, Hiroki, this isn't working. We've tried a hundred times over, this materialization isn't working. Here's my thoughts: The other factory has both virtualizing _and _materialization, we saw it firsthand. I think it would be easier to try and hack it out of them then make out own.**

**Hiroki: Well, the problem is, I don't have a form. When you're sent to Lyoko, your molecules are still here, they're just virtualized. But I don't have _any _molecules, virtual or material.**

**Milly: Well, then what!**

**Hiroki: I agree with you, but we're gonna need more than just virtualization and materialization. Remember the polymorphic spectors? If we can find a way to send me to Lyoko, then you can key my materialization to a polymorph. It won't be permanent, turning off the supercomputer would still turn me off, but it would give me a material form, with material molecules. So it would be easier to make them permanent, then it would be to create them.**

**Milly: I think that would work. Brb, I've gotta go get the books on polymorphs!**

Milly quickly jumped up and combed the shelves surrounding her seat, before finding the useful ones about polymorphs, and adding them to the pile of books already around her, containing endless info about virtualization and materialization and virtual avatars, not to mention scans, mental implantations, mental mutations, removing and implanting them… She then went and found some books about making molecules permanent.

**Milly: Alright, I got a bunch more. Let's get going on this!**

The two worked on coupling the polymorph program with the materialization program, before switching to hacking the other supercomputer, so they could actually _use _these programs.

Fortunately, it was a Friday, and Heidi has given Milly permission to stay up all night and the next day (on the condition that she would get a few hours of sleep on Saturday night, and seven hours minimum on Sunday). Milly didn't like asking for permission, but Johnny pointed out that she wasn't at her peak when she was dead on her feet, and Tamiya agreed that if Milly wasn't gonna take care of herself, the others were gonna have to step in.

So the two spent that night, and the next day, working. The one program that wasn't contained in the massive tomes surrounding them was the hacking programs, the ones they'd need to gain access to the other supercomputer. Each program on the other supercomputer needed a different access code, so it wasn't like they could hack one program and the others would be open to them.

But as hard as this was (and the other supercomputer had an unrivaled defense) their supercomputer had formidable hacking abilities, and it was far easier to take the programs then to recreate them. Hiroki estimated that it would take a few months to recreate just one of the programs.

Tamiya had just entered to bring Milly lunch (and try to convince her to get off the computer) when they had a breakthrough. But not on anything they wanted.

**Hiroki: Super. We hacked the wrong program.**

**Milly: Tell me something I _don't _know! What the hell are we supposed to do with a program that _implants _viruses? This won't even work for a counter virus.**

**Hiroki: Don't worry Milly. I'm sure we'll get there. Heck, maybe this'll come in handy at some point.**

Tamiya gently put the plate down next to Milly, who looked so defeated.

"Eight hours," she whispered, pulling at her hair. "Eight hours straight of working, for nothing."

Tamiya backed out. Milly clearly didn't know she was there, and now apparently, wouldn't be a good time to convince her friend to leave.

A few more seconds passed, as Milly scanned through the volumes around her, looking for information on the program they had found.

She massaged her eyes, tiredly.

**Milly: Hiroki, I don't see how we're ever gonna do this, Hiroki. We work so hard, but we don't even know what we're opening access to!**

**Hiroki: Milly, don't worry. You're wrong if you think we're starting over. Each thing we hack gives us experience, more information on the system.**

Milly sighed.

**Milly: You're right of course. Come on, let's get back to work.**

They worked until the end of the day. The two, under the realization of the enormity of their task, spent much less time talking. When a program ran, instead of talking about normal things, the two would discuss plans, work on other things, read from the books.

It wasn't until about midnight, that Johnny arrived.

"Milly," he said.

He received no answer, instead she continued typing.

"Milly!" He said, raising his voice.

"One minute, Johnny. We've almost finished this!" The two had stumbled on a lucky break about an hour ago, and they had made a considerable amount of progress, unlocking access to a likely looking program.

Johnny hung around, not knowing that, to Milly, 'one minute' was never less than ten.

After a good fifteen minutes of silence, save for the clicking of her keyboard, Johnny raised his voice again. "Milly!"

She sighed, turning around. "Are you still here?" She asked, irritably.

"Yes! Heidi and Tamiya asked me to get you to come back!"

She brushed this off, but he insisted. "They _said _Milly."

"Well then, why didn't _they _come?"

He shrugged, rolling his eyes. "They're busy."

Milly snorted. "With what?"

He sighed. "Actually, I think they're doing mani-pedis. Apparently Heidi's never had one, so Tamiya gave her a makeover, and her nails are wet, or something."

An evil smile appeared on Milly's lips. "So what? You're just gonna let them get away with making you their messenger boy? You gonna let them make you do the dirty work while they 'do their nails'?" In all honesty, Milly understood what a big deal this was to Tamiya, who loved giving makeovers. But if she could get rid of Johnny for another ten-twenty minutes, it'd be worth it to get the extra work time.

Johnny shrugged. "I didn't mind. Calling you didn't work cause your phones off-"

"So you ran all the way down here, while they did nothing." She shook her head. "You shouldn't let Heidi order you around. Tamiya either. If they had such an important message, they should deliver it."

Johnny frowned. "You think so?"

Milly put a hand on his arm. "Make a stand, Johnny!" She said, dramatically. "Go back and tell them that you're not gonna put up with this!"

Johnny's eyes lit up. "Alright, I think I will!" He grinned, before turning and heading off, muttering, "to think they woke me up to do their dirty work."

Milly bit her lip, feeling bad for being manipulative. All she had done was take a task Johnny normally wouldn't care about, and make it seemed like he was being taken advantage of. A dirty trick, but necessary to ear herself some extra time.

She worked with Hiroki for about fifteen more minutes. It took about ten minutes to get to the factory from the school, so she had a little more time.

Suddenly, she got a report that their last hack had been successful.

And it was indeed.

The two had just won themselves quite a bundle of programs.

The first thing was nearly an entire report on the mutation X.A.N.A. had implanted in The Civilian (as the mentally mutated person had become known). Apparently, once implanted, this virus would manifest itself as a physical virus. The best way to get it out would be killing it, not removing it, as the two had thought.

The second program they got was one that would help create an anti-virus.

The third was a partial materialization. This program would allow them to make their anti-virus material, in one form or another. Once that happened, it would be much easier to somehow inject it into The Civilian, then it would be to knock them out, drag them to the other factory (while Ulrich's group was out), find a way of getting the virus out, and then somehow erasing their memory.

**Milly: Oh my God! This is so awesome! I think we really found something useful!**

**Hiroki: You're telling ME! This is incredible! We should get to work…**

**Milly: What is it?**

**Hiroki: Milly, you're supposed to be asleep right now, it's almost 12:30!**

**Milly: Pft, who told you that?**

"I did," a voice from behind Milly said.

Milly whipped around to come face to face with an angry looking Heidi.

"Milly, what is your damage! I thought we agreed, no work after midnight! You can hang out or whatever, but you have to stop, or you'll drive yourself crazy! So Tamiya and I are in the middle of something at about ten of, so we call Johnny, who seems perfectly fine with fetching you. Then about half an hour later, he comes back, alone, preaching about how he doesn't have to be pushed around, and if it's so important to us, we should just do it ourselves. _Then_ Tamiya points out that it's not important to _us _it's important for _you._" She sighed, throwing her hands in the air. "You're acting like the little child you so hate to be compared to!"

Milly just listened, quietly. Nothing was going to burst the bubble of happiness she had gotten from her discovery.

"Sorry Heidi!" She chirped when the older girl was finished ranting. "Won't happen again. Now that you mention it, I _am _awfully tired. So much that I think I'll just head to bed right now."

She quickly typed a good night to Hiroki before beaming at Heidi, and skipping off.

Heidi stood in the middle of the factory, bewildered. She had fully expected an outright temper tantrum, instead she got to see Milly acting like the happy little pixie she resembled.

Heidi peered over at the screen, but couldn't make heads or tails out of anything on it, except for the conversation.

This, however, hinted that something had gone overwhelming right in Milly and Hiroki's mission.

Heidi sighed, a smile slipping on her face. "Well, it's about time something went right for you. Congrats."

She turned and headed out of the factory, shivering slightly in the cool air.

Autumn was already almost over. Heidi had the fleeting thought that maybe, just maybe, Hiroki would be out for the Christmas holidays.


	10. Chapter 10

Over the next week, the group experienced another return trip. Hiroki said he sensed the return trip, but although they spent the day on alert, nothing happened.

They were just wondering if it was a false alarm, there was nothing on any news or anything about strange goings on.

Then, a return trip ran by, sending them back to that morning.

Hiroki told Milly that X.A.N.A. had only targeted the other factory, so they didn't have to worry about that one.

Meanwhile, Milly and Hiroki had been hard at work with their anti-virus for The Civilian. They had also been working on hacking the materialization and virtualization and polymorph.

They had gotten a few extraneous things, but nothing useful.

More time passed.

Tamiya, not wanting to put pressure on Milly, was coming up with ways that Hiroki could enter society. Milly didn't quite realize how much still had to be done, even after they materialized him.

Heidi and Johnny were constantly sneaking around Ulrich's group.

Johnny had gotten quite good at lockpicking, and his footsteps had become far quieter in the past few weeks.

A few more days later, there was another X.A.N.A. attack, but Tamiya had already warned them not to get into direct contact with Ulrich's group, only help civilians. This attack, involving X.A.N.A. possessing laughing gas, was directed mainly at Ulrich's group, so once again, they had little role in it. And once again, another return trip passed.

A few more attacks passed, where the group was able to do little to help. One thing they could do was occasionally tap into X.A.N.A.'s attacks, to bug them slightly, like in the attack when X.A.N.A. trapped Milly, Tamiya, Sissi's gang, Ulrich and Odd, and another boy, in the cafeteria. Or when X.A.N.A. created a song that played deadly waves into the person listening to it. The original strength could put someone in a coma after listening to it for about a minute, but they were able to weaken it, slightly. However, as time passed, it got too strong for them to do anything. Fortunately, a return trip passed before there was any permanent damage.

There was another attack, one that occurred between these two, but no one in the group remembered it…

Then, one day, while the girls were video-taping the school's robot competition, X.A.N.A. struck again, this time with a large and lethal robot.

The day started off much like the others, though Hiroki warned Milly that X.A.N.A. was stirring.

Tamiya and Milly had just picked up the biggest scoop of the month, when Herb's robot cheated, shooting a small metal gear, exploding Jeremie's.

Things were looking up, Milly was so happy with her news that Tamiya almost didn't have the heart to tell her that Jeremie was about to give the entire thing away by confronting Herb.

Meanwhile, Heidi and Johnny were watching the entrances to the gym. The attacks normally focused on Ulrich's group, and if they were all in the gym, it was anyone's guess as to where X.A.N.A. would attack.

Then, Johnny saw it, entering the gym. It must've been ten feet tall. He yelled to alert Heidi, who, upon seeing it enter, quickly began getting the students in the gym to evacuate.

"Come on, people," she said, ushering them along.

Johnny headed back toward the rest of the school, to inform them. He had taken a few pictures for proof, but the wrecked gym would be proof enough.

He ran into the dorms, where several students where hanging out (despite this being against the rules).

"There's an evacuation going on," he said, in his most authoritative voice. Judging by the expressions on their faces, none of the students were buying it.

He thrust open a curtain.

"Look! At the gym!" He urged them.

A few glances at the gym, which had doors torn off and a large hole in the wall, told these students that Johnny _was _telling the truth.

"Right," a 9th grader girl said. "Uh, thanks." She hesitated for a minute, before running to evacuate the school grounds, the other students following her.

Back by the gym, Heidi was making sure everyone was out. A few boys had missed the evacuation alert (they had been in the locker rooms), so she helped them out to their stations.

Milly had grabbed her backpack, which her laptop was in, and opened a link to Hiroki.

**Milly: There's a giant robot attacking the school! Please tell me there won't be more!**

**Hiroki: I can't be sure, you know I'm hardly any good at hacking into his attacks! From what I've gathered, X.A.N.A.'s mostly attacking through the possession of a large robotic structure. That'd be your robot, I guess. It seems like he's not manufacturing anymore, so that's good. How are things over there?**

**Milly: Chaos. You need to ask? Though, seriously, we're helping evacuate. Which isn't exactly fun, because I'd much rather be off the grounds, where it's fairly safe, than looking around for stragglers. But I guess no one said this would be easy.**

**Hiroki: Do your best, Milly. I've got faith in you :)**

**Milly: I have to go. The others'll be relieved to hear there won't be more. This one seems mainly after Ulrich's group, so once the students are evacuated, they'll be pretty safe.**

She logged off and hurried off to tell Tamiya what she had learned.

It wasn't long before everyone was out of the school. The toughest part had been actually convincing people that there was a giant homicidal robot on school grounds, but the thing had caused enough damage to be apparent.

After a while, it had gone quiet on the school grounds. Milly and Tamiya, who had since joined the group of 7th graders, exchanged looks. This silence either meant that the monster had been defeated, it had followed Ulrich's group off academy grounds, or… it had finished its work.

Milly was just debating whether or not to call Heidi, to ask if she knew anything, when a familiar wall of light appeared in the distance.

_Please be at the competition, _Milly silently begged Ulrich's group at the light washed over them.

The next thing she knew, she was standing in the gym.

Tamiya did a quick count, and smiled. They were all alive and accounted for.

.

That night, Milly was in for a surprise. While Hiroki had been trying to hack into X.A.N.A.'s attack, he had managed something else.

Hiroki had managed to get info on the basic polymorphic spector, as well as the return trip.

**Hiroki: Milly, Tamiya and I have been talking. She's been telling me how much legal stuff I'm gonna need on Earth, once I get here, and how difficult that's gonna be. She's not sure how much we can get it to fly, pretending that I've been here all along.**

**Milly: Oh?**

**Hiroki: So, we've been talking, and she wondered if we could create a sort of mental altercation that would create a role for me in your world. False memories, birth certificate, that sorta thing.**

Milly was quiet, thinking about it.

**Milly: It seems impossibly difficult.**

**Hiroki: It actually wouldn't be. Because here's the thing. Once this is implanted it becomes fact. Even if the paperwork isn't perfect, it won't matter, because they have their memories, which is the strongest thing. Even if we're not 100% thorough, they have enough memories that they'll just attribute it to memory loss. Not to mention, we have the programs. It'll be tough, but very permanent.**

**Milly: I'm willing to give it a shot! At least we have a concrete plan! And I was also looking through the polymorph program. It's heavily based off the first polymorph created by X.A.N.A., which is, I think, one of Yumi Ishyama. Since you're Japanese, won't this help?**

**Hiroki: I think so. Although, even after we change it, I'll possibly bear a slight resemblance to her.**

Milly stared at this for a minute, an idea working its way into her head. Suddenly, she typed back,

**Milly: Hiroki, which would be easier, to program a false memory into Ulrich's group, or a normal person?**

**Hiroki: Hmm, interesting question. I believe it would be easier to implant false memories into someone in Ulrich's group than someone else, due to the fact that they've already had their memories modified a lot.**

**Milly: So, perhaps it would be better to insert you in a role that relies heavily on them. Say… a sibling?**

**Hiroki: …. What are you getting at?**

**Milly: I'm saying: I think that your role on Earth should be as Yumi's 'brother'. You're already gonna look like her and share some DNA, because your physical form is based off of a clone of hers. It would be easiest to give her memories because of the fact that her mind's been modified before. It also would be easy to keep an eye on your 'family life', because they live so close to the school. If any legal problems start to crop up, we can catch it before it becomes a big deal. It's a perfect solution!**

**Hiroki: … wow. That might actually work! That might work! Actually, I think it will!**

Milly grinned. They had a plan. They had the methods. This would actually work!

.

Time passed. There was an attack in which Tamiya risked her life saving someone from plummeting into the sky when X.A.N.A. reversed the gravitational force.

But they were, again, saved by a return trip in the nick of time.

Another passed a few days later, reversing an attack, which Hiroki said was very centered on the other factory, and didn't affect them.

Then, right before they went on a three day vacation, Milly succeeded in giving her laptop a strong connection to the supercomputer, one that would stay steady over several hundred miles away. It would help for times that she wasn't able to be at the factory (break periods, meals, times she didn't want to waste twenty minutes getting to and from the factory).

Then they all went home for a long vacation.

Milly got quite a lot of work done over this time (it didn't hurt that a return trip ran half way through, allowing for them to get extra time working, though according to Heidi, the city their school was at nearly sunk entirely into the ground due to a X.A.N.A. attack). Also, her parents didn't mind if she worked through the night, they were very lax about bedtime rules.

Though her parents did wish she spent at least _some_ time outside of her room while she was there.

On the last night, they had a breakthrough.

**Hiroki: Milly, I think this is it.**

**Milly: Well, we're gonna have to run a few updates, and I'll have to write a new program, but each failed attempt will definitely help in making a new-**

**Hiroki: No, Milly, I mean, I seriously think this is it.**

**Milly: Well it'll definitely-**

She stopped as Hiroki forwarded the program to her. He had run it through all the courses, and it came back as compatible, for the human mind, for the return trip, for the specifically written documents they had already forged.

**Milly: Oh. You mean, we did it?**

**Hiroki: Yeah! This will actually work! This is _it_!**

Milly just stared at the program for a minute. Then she let out a squeal of pure happiness, and quickly called Tamiya.

"Tamiya Tamiya Tamiya TAMIYA!" She shrieked into her phone. "We did it!"

"Milly, what are you talking about," Tamiya's sleepy voice came over the other end.

"We've completed the entire mental altercation program! And what with the progress we've been making on the polymorph/virtualization/materialization coupling, we could have this done really soon!"

"Soon? How soon?"

"A week or two soon! Can you believe it!"

Then there was a bang at her door.

"Milly, darling, please," her mother's slightly accented voice called through the door. "Your father and I are trying to get some sleep."

She glanced at the door. "Sorry, mom," she called back.

"Don't know how she heard me on the other side of the house," Milly muttered over the phone.

Tamiya sighed, smiling. "Your mom? Doesn't she hate France? I'll bet she just wishes she was back in Russia, your house there is tons bigger than the one here. But seriously Milly, you found something."

"Something?" Milly said, her voice raising again in excitement. "More than something! Weren't you listening? We could have this done in a few WEEKS!"

Tamiya yawned loudly over the line.

Milly sighed, rolling her eyes. "Fine, I'll call Johnny. He knows how to bee excited."

She hung up and quickly called Johnny. "Johnny! You'll never guess! Know how you were just telling me before we left how you couldn't wait for Hiroki to be out so you two could get back at Sissi? Well, it may happen sooner than you think!"

"Huh?"

"We've been having so much progress, it's incredible! We could get him out soon! We could-"

There was another bang at her door. This time it was her father.

"Milly! Do I have to confiscate your phone to get you to quiet down?" He thundered.

Milly put her phone down and opened the door, staring innocently up at her father, who towered over his tiny red haired daughter.

"I'm sorry, papa," she said, her eyes wide with innocence. "I've just had some good luck that's been evading me all year. I'll be quiet, I promise."

He glowered down at her, but she continued to stare up at him, until a smile broke through his fierce stare. He ruffled her hair slightly. "Alright, Milly. But you're not the only person in the house, remember that." He walked off, chuckling slightly. "How you avoid getting in trouble at school is beyond me."

Milly watched after him, until he disappeared down the vast hallway.

She returned into her room to find Johnny had hung up. There was a text from him, reading.

**Sry I had to hang up. My sister was yelling at me to b quiet. C u tmr!**

Milly texted back, **no prob, c u 2!**

Then she called Heidi, to spread the good news.

"Hey Heidi," she whispered. "You'll never guess who just succeeded in creating a mental altercation that'll allow for Hiroki to live among us, with no notice of his sudden appearance!"

Heidi frowned, trying to make sense of Milly's convoluted sentence. "Um, you?"

"Right!" She lowered her voice, which had gotten louder. "We completed it. Meaning, it'll work. We still need to couple it to the return trip. And work on the materialization. It's strange, that last one. We managed to hack it a few months ago, and there was next to no information, just a little bit about sending humans back from Lyoko. Since then, it's grown, incredibly quickly. But I don't think it's X.A.N.A. who's expanding it, which means it must be someone from Ulrich's group." Milly shook her head in wonderment. "To be that genius at only 8th grade. This is advanced stuff, Heidi. Most of our expert scientists don't even think it's possible, and one of the 8th graders are actually _creating _it."

Heidi paused for a minute. "Probably Belpois. But let's not brush over your achievements. Creating a person from a computer program? Changing the entire world to believe he's always existed? You're quite the genius yourself."

Milly blushed, not used to such a compliment, especially coming from Heidi. "Well," she said, "most of the world will hardly be affected. It's only people like the Ishyama family, and people who would be close to Hiroki who really call for extensive changes."

Heidi laughed. "Downplay it all you want Milly. I'm happy for you. You're not the only one who can't wait to see him. He's all of our friend."

Milly smiled still happy. "You know, I'm probably gonna get some rest. I should get some sleep, or I won't preform at my peek."

Heidi rolled her eyes. "Really? You need sleep? Tell me something I haven't been trying to convince you over the last several months."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Milly said, laughing. "See you tomorrow."

"See ya."

Milly said goodnight to Hiroki, before crawling under her covers.

She wondered briefly what Hiroki would look like. He had been completely in charge of creating his physical form, since only he knew what it would look like. But it was strange for him, she knew. He couldn't see, he could hear, or feel or anything. He was only 'aware'. But she had to trust that he would make a complete figure for himself.

She fell asleep, and when she did, her dreams were full of her and Hiroki on Lyoko…


	11. Chapter 11

The next day Tamiya woke up bright and early, wondering if the call Milly had paid her the previous night had been just a dream.

She headed downstairs for an early breakfast, her plane left at 7:03 AM sharp, so that she'd arrive at 8:32. Kadic had a delayed start on the first day of school after vacations, to give the students a chance to arrive.

School would begin at noon.

Her mother smiled as she arrived downstairs. "I for one," she said, "can't wait for Christmas vacation. Three days is too short a time."

Tamiya smiled, as she quickly ate. "I know," she said.

Her little brother came downstairs. He was only 8, much too young to young to be going to Kadic.

"You're up early, Bari," she said, smiling.

He shrugged. "I wanted to say goodbye." He frowned. "You left this summer without waking me up! I wanted to say goodbye, Miya."

She got up and hugged, him. Suddenly, she had a strange thought. In a few weeks, maybe Yumi would be doing the same to her little brother. Wouldn't it be strange if Jabari was just someone completely unrelated to her? Would she ever be able to find out?

A shiver ran through her, and her little brother looked up at her, his big brown eyes questioning. "What's wrong, Miya?"

She shook her head, smiling. "Oh, nothing, nothing. I'll just miss you, that's all."

Her mother stood up, clearing the plates to the sink. "Well, Tamiya, we have to get going if we don't want to miss your flight."

Tamiya gave her brother one last hug, promising to write home, and left with her mother to the airport.

She met up with Heidi at the airport. Milly's plane wouldn't arrive for another hour, and Johnny would be there soon after.

"So…" Tamiya said. "Did Milly call you about a possible success she had? I got a call from her, but I'm not sure if it was just a dream."

Heidi smiled. "Oh no, Milly was definitely successful with her 'mental altercation' thing. It's certainly going to be strange, having someone who's not real."

Tamiya frowned. "He's real. Just not in the same sense as you and I."

Heidi held up her hands. "Hey, don't get me wrong. But my point is it'll be weird knowing a kid at the school who was, just a few months ago, a completely dormant program. And now he'll be full flesh and blood, in front of us, the little 'brother' of a 9th grader."

Tamiya shuddered. "Doesn't that feel weird though. I mean, the whole mental manipulation thing?"

Heidi sighed. "I know it. I have four siblings myself, two twin older sisters, who are 16, a younger brother, who's 6, and a baby little sister, who just turned 2 over the weekend. It would be so weird if one of them wasn't actually my sibling."

Tamiya nodded.

The two talked a bit more, before Johnny showed up, asking the same thing about whether or not last night was a dream.

He agreed with them, that it'd be weird if his sister turned out not to be his real sister.

"I think the main reason Milly's not as disturbed by this is because she's an only child," Tamiya said. "She's a single child of super-rich parents, she doesn't get the whole sibling thing."

Heidi cocked her head, thinking. "Ah, yes, that _would _make sense. I can see Milly as the spoiled, rich, only child. No offense, she's sweet, but the whole 'always getting her way' thing definitely says that."

Johnny grinned. "Well, if it's any consolation, Heidi, your snarky attitude definitely fits that of a middle child."

Heidi paused. "No it doesn't-"

"Yeah, it does," Tamiya said, smiling. "It'd also explain why you're always trying to take charge of our group."

Heidi didn't look thrilled at this comparison. "Whatever," she said, blowing it off.

They talked a while more until Milly came. "Hey guys!" She called, waving. "When is the pickup?"

Heidi checked her phone. "11:00. We still have about a half an hour."

"We should probably head to the pickup spot," Johnny said.

Heidi, who had been flying to and from school for three years, shrugged. "Eh, we can head over at quarter of. Trust me, I know where we're going."

Johnny nodded, looking relieved.

Heidi raised an eyebrow. "What, did you think we'd let you wander around her alone?"

He shrugged. "The first time I was here, I came alone and got lost. I almost missed the pickup."

Milly grinned. "No worries! Tamiya and I have been doing this a bunch, and Heidi's an old pro!"

.

Once the group arrived back at school, they split up, going to their respective classes.

At three, when classes ended, the group met up at the factory.

The others caught up with Hiroki, while Milly got to work.

They spent the whole afternoon there, and while little progress was made (mostly on the anti-virus), they all enjoyed catching up with each other.

However, after they all left for dinner, Milly stayed, and the two got cracking on creating an anti-virus.

A few days passed until there was another attack. They knew nothing about it, except that Ulrich, Yumi, and Odd all went missing.

Tamiya told them not to worry about it. Ulrich's groups knew how to handle themselves. A few hours later, Jeremie went missing too.

Then, a return trip went by, and, just as Tamiya had predicted, Ulrich's group was, once again, safe.

That night, Milly and Hiroki finalized the anti-virus. They were able to use what little they had of the materialization to materialize it in their own scanner (which had been the other cylinder, next to their supercomputer).

They made enough for four, in case anyone missed.

It was a liquid form, and Milly and Heidi had worked together to mix small, air pressured guns of Milly's (they had actually been old toys that shot foam darts, but a few updates made them more powerful), with a few handmade darts of Heidi's. After loading the darts with the anti-virus, each member took one.

Johnny looked at his. "This'll work?" He asked.

Milly nodded. "Like I said, the mutation has taken a physical form in The Civilian's head. Our anti-virus took a similar form. It should kill the mutation in a very short period of time." She had a wide grin on her face, another victory for her.

Heidi nodded. "Johnny and I are the best shots, but I think everyone should keep an eye out."

Tamiya nodded, thinking. "I have an idea of who it might be…" she mused. She didn't want to say anything, in case she was wrong. Heidi, Johnny, and Milly were all impulsive, and if Tamiya gave them the wrong name, who knows what ill effects he would suffer after being pelted with three anti-viruses, intended to kill a virus that may not exist.

She shrugged. "I'll tell you if I find anything. But, maybe you two," she gestured at Heidi and Johnny. "Should hang around Ulrich's group for a bit. If The Civilian is going to target them, we should keep an eye on them."

Heidi exchanged a glance with Johnny, who nodded. "Ok," she said. "Sounds good to me."

Milly smiled. "Good. According to Hiroki, the mutation has grown much stronger. That's why we've been spending time on the anti-virus. It could reach its full strength at any time, and it's your guys' job to make sure you get rid of it _after _they attack Ulrich's group but _before _the mutation reaches its peak."

Heidi smiled. "Sounds like a challenge. I guess we'll head off."

Tamiya nodded, watching them run off. "I'm gonna head off too," she said, casually. "There's something I need to check."

She hurried off to the school.

Tamiya wanted to watch a different person, someone who had been increasingly paranoid, who had a bizarre obsession with Ulrich's group, someone who used to be nice but had nearly lost any remnants of his normally friendly demeanor.

It had always struck her strange, how people on the school could go missing, but the teacher most involved with the students would completely ignore it, in favor of spying on four students, who were acting completely normal at the time.

Tamiya figured that even once The Civilian outright attacked someone from Ulrich's group, it would be subtle. Less pull out a knife and stab, more chase and cause accident.

So instead of following Ulrich's group, she sought out someone else…

,

However, the day passed fairly uneventfully, though just from what Tamiya observed, her suspicions were growing.

The next morning, something popped up on Milly's screen.

The ever developing materialization program had once again been updated…

Updated to the point, where materialization was now possible.

Milly just stared. If the mental altercation was a huge success, this was a hundred times bigger.

**Milly: Hiroki, do you see this?**

**Hiroki: Hmm? Let me look.**

There a short pause, before,

**Hiroki: Oh my god. We have to work on coupling the programs. This could be done in a few _days_!**

**Milly: EEE! This is so incredible! Hiroki, you could be here in a few days! Standing right here in front of us!**

**Hiroki: Let's get to work!**

Milly decided to skip classes that day. Jim didn't notice, he was too focused on Ulrich's group to pay attention to the 7th grader.

Heidi was about to go drag her out to class after lunch, but Johnny, who had just been chatting with Tamiya told her that Tamiya said Milly was _so _close to freeing Hiroki.

"Doesn't matter. She needs to get out."

Johnny shook his head. "Tamiya says she's really busy. Come on, Heidi, give her some time to finish it!"

Heidi shook her head. "She's deluding herself on how close she is. I don't disagree, I'll bet she's closer, but I doubt she's _that _close."

"How do you know?" Johnny retorted. "I'm not telling you what I heard from Milly, she'll always talk about how close she is. But Tamiya thought it was worth mention because this time, Milly doesn't _think _she's close, she _is_ close."

Heidi opened her mouth to retort, but Johnny shook his head. "Give her time today. I say so, Tamiya and Milly both say so. 3:1, you're outvoted. Leave her alone. One day of extra work won't hurt her."

He turned and walked off.

Heidi stared after him, mouth slightly agape. She struggled, trying to find some comeback, before sighing. "Whatever."

She turned on her heel, and strode off.

Heidi would leave Milly alone for the whole day. If she really was that close, Heidi wanted her to get her work done. If by tomorrow Milly hadn't finished her work, though, Heidi would make sure she got out the lab. It wasn't healthy for an 11 year old to spend too much time cooped up, inside, without sleeping.

Milly, unaware that her day of work had just been threatened, defended, and rescued, continued on her work, blissfully, not paying attention to the time which quickly flew by.

As a result, it came as a surprise when, suddenly, the programs clicked together.

"It-it worked?" She whispered, eyes wide. "It worked. It _worked,_" she whispered, trying to get it to register. The program she had been working on since nearly the beginning of the school year, nearly three and a half months, had finished. It was compatible. It would _work_.

**Hiroki: Did you see what I just saw?**

**Milly: Yeah. Wow, it _works_!**


	12. Chapter 12

Meanwhile, Heidi was on her way to fetch Milly, when she got derailed, answering a classmate's question about an assignment.

"Uh, right, Lucy," Heidi said, distractedly. Then, she heard Stern and Della Robbia, walking behind her. Ignoring her classmate, she put on a listening smile, secretly eavesdropping on the two behind her.

They were talking about Jim, and how, if they weren't careful, he'd "find their secret passage".

She tried to excuse herself from the conversation, as the two boys ran off, but soon another girl joined their conversation.

Normally, Heidi would have no problem conversing with her classmates, especially in Italian. The three girls were the only 8th graders in the advanced Italian class, and she could probably use all the help she could get. But right now, she needed to tail the boys, to make sure no one was seriously hurt.

Time passed, and the two girls refused to let Heidi go.

Meanwhile, Johnny was slinking around, doing better at going unnoticed. He overheard Jim, who was apparently looking for the group. Tamiya had kept asking him what Jim was up to, so Johnny had to split his time watching both.

It was easier than he thought it would be, because Jim mainly kept within twenty feet of Ulrich's group.

However, he lost Jim after a bit, after the group ran up to the dorms.

Heidi was walking with her classmates, trying to move them over to where she had seen Jim talking to Sissi's group.

Sissi told Jim that they were in the dorms. The instant he realized all of them were there, he took off, shoving Herb and Nicholas out of his way as he tore off.

"Hey," one of her classmates said, "did you see Jim? He looked mad."

Heidi shrugged. "I don't know. So, uh, hey, I was thinking! If we're having so much trouble with the lesson, maybe you should go talk to Mr. Fumet, I'm sure he'll help."

Lucy shrugged. "Sure, come on."

Both girls grabbed Heidi's hands and began dragging her off.

"Or, wait!" Heidi cut in, knowing that the last thing she wanted was to be dragged to the other end of the school. "I have some notes! In my room. I'll go get them."

Monica, the other girl looked unsure. "I don't know, Heidi. Jim just went in there, looking angry. I don't think we should."

Heidi sighed. It was going to take a miracle to get rid of these girls.

,

In her room, Tamiya waited, listening. She had come back up, because she knew that Ulrich's group were hanging out here.

She heard them talking, though their words were muffled by Jeremie's closed door.

What she _could _make of it, was that the group was somehow materializing Aelita on Earth. The conversation was strange, because it sounded just like one her group would be having, only about Hiroki, instead of Aelita.

Something registered in her mind about that. Ulrich's group could turn off the supercomputer, stopping X.A.N.A., but never did. They had a friend, Aelita, who she had only ever seen on Lyoko. The materialization program was very undeveloped at first, but got more and more advanced, as if someone in Ulrich's group (probably Jeremie) was expanding on it.

Was it possible that this Aelita girl had a similar dilemma as Hiroki? Of course, she had a corporal form, but maybe she never had the ability to be materialized.

Tamiya was so wrapped up in this, she hardly noticed the conversation outside her room, until she heard Jim's raised voice.

She gripped her anti-virus tightly, peering through the keyhole. Was this it? Was he going to attack them?

Whatever Jim's plan was, it was stopped by Principal Delmas's arrival. He rebuked Jim for having a "one track mind concerning these children". Tamiya had the suspicion that all the reprimand in the world wasn't going to stop Jim now.

She wanted to act, but was worried. He hadn't outright attacked them. But maybe he was about to when the principal interrupted. Did that count? Was now the time? Or was it still too soon? Was Tamiya just being too paranoid herself?

She pulled on a strand of hair, wrapping it around her finger, worried, but in the end, decided to do nothing.

,

Back at the factory, Milly and Hiroki were in the final stages of their program.

Hiroki was tying together the virtualization, materialization, and polymorphic spector programs, along with one that would make it more permanent, and not need to rely on a tower to exist.

Milly was running final checks, to make sure that everything they needed for the memory altercations were working, that nothing was faulty, and that it was strongly adhered to the next return trip that passed. Once the return trip went by, all the mental altercations would be, as they called it, SWATR (sealed with a return trip). This would make it near permanent, so it had to be perfect, or there would be problems.

The screen gave back a report that The Civilian was also nearing their final stage in X.A.N.A.'s plan, but since Milly and Hiroki had coupled so many programs with the next return trip, they _had _to get _everything _done before Ulrich's group launched another return trip.

,

Back at school, Heidi had had no luck ditching her classmates, who now accompanied her to class.

_Eurgh, this feels like a bad movie, _she thought, as her teacher gave the days lesson.

However, halfway through the class, Yumi asked to be excused to the infirmary.

_Oh, and that's not suspicious. _Heidi and her friends knew that any time a member of Ulrich's group asked to go to the infirmary, it meant there was trouble with X.A.N.A.

It would be too suspicious to ask the same, and Heidi couldn't reach the others, as she had a seat at the front of class, and couldn't risk using her phone.

_Oh, this is just super._

_,_

Tamiya was caught by a teaching aide, and told to get to her math class or risk detention. Never before had she wished so much that she had Heidi or Johnny's ability to sneak without being seen.

,

Johnny was very glad he had this ability, as he was able to watch as Ulrich's group met up and ran out to the forest. Jim followed them, which Johnny thought was strange, but didn't dwell too much on it.

Instead, he called Milly.

"Hey, Milly? Is X.A.N.A. active? I just saw Ulrich's whole group run out to the factory."

"Huh, oh, give me a sec," Milly's rushed voice ordered. A few seconds later, "Oh, yeah, he's doing things. But not tower things, he shouldn't bug you guys."

She hung up.

"Gee, thanks Milly," he muttered. He sat down on the stairs, wondering what to do. Heidi and Tamiya were in class, Milly and Hiroki were way too busy, Ulrich's group had run off, and even Jim was gone.

He sent out a few texts to the other girls, to keep them informed.

**Girls, Milly and Hiroki r really close to finishing, and X.A.N.A.'s attacking, but not on Earth. Ulrich's group and Jim are off campus.**

Then he realized he had class that was starting in a minute. Having no reason to skip he sighed. "Might as well go to Science," he muttered, running off to the science building.

He was a few minutes late, but Mrs. Hertz was too busy reprimanding another student for not doing her homework that she took no notice of him as he slid into class.

,

It wasn't until Heidi got out of class that she was able to read the text Johnny had sent.

_Almost finished? What does that mean? Are they almost done bringing Hiroki to Earth? Now?_

Shrugging, she headed to the dorms to drop off her bag. Italian had been her last class.

,

Tamiya, who had gotten out of math class, was watching a soccer game being taught by Jim, when she noticed Belpois running by, a little ways off the track, toward the dorms.

Jim noticed him, and quickly threw the ball to the players, before taking off, in hot pursuit, after Jeremie.

Tamiya called Heidi.

"Heidi," she said, when her friend picked up, "you need to go to the dorms."

"I'm here now, why?"

"Uh, stay there." Tamiya's heart was racing. She had seen something click in Jim's eyes, and she was almost certain. This was it.

"Why?"

"Just do so! Keep an eye on Jeremie. And Jim."

"Jim, why?"

"Just do it!" Tamiya ordered, before hanging up.

,

Heidi glanced down at her phone. "Well, if she thinks it's a good idea, I've nothing better to do." She had already stashed her bag, and was now just waiting. A few others were down there.

Suddenly, they heard a commotion. Heidi listened to the voices ringing out from the upper level.

"This time, the principal's not here to come to your rescue!"

Was that Jim yelling?

Suddenly she saw Jeremie appear at the top of the staircase. He began running down the stairs, panting, shooting a worried glance behind him.

Then Jim was there, barreling after him, shouting threats.

"What's Jim's deal?" A girl next to her asked.

"I don't-"

Then Heidi thought she saw Jim toss something down the stairs. It was well aimed, almost as if it had been done on purpose. Jeremie's foot landed on whatever it was, maybe a piece of cloth, and slipped.

Heidi gasped as she watched the twelve-year-old tumble down the final flight of stairs, landing hard on his ankle.

What seemed like a smile flickered on Jim's face, until he noticed his audience.

"Oh no, Jeremie," he whispered, running down the final flight of stairs.

Jeremie struggled to his feet, but his legs gave way as he put weight on the ankle he landed on.

Heidi watched Jim run over to him. Something seemed strange about the whole thing. It certainly seemed like Jim had done this on purpose.

"What are you, crazy Jim?" Heidi asked, her mind reeling.

Then it snapped.

Jim _was _crazy. He was The Civilian. That was why Tamiya had such a vested interest in him, why she always tried to get them to watch him. This didn't look like an accident because it wasn't.

And that was why Tamiya had told her to stay here. It all made sense.

The girl standing next to her bent down to see if Jeremie's was alright. The other guy had already rushed off to get help.

Jim's eyes were on Jeremie.

No one was paying attention to her, so she took quick aim and fired her dart gun at him.

He didn't even seem to notice its slight prick.

Heidi maneuvered herself behind him.

As the anti-virus took effect, Jim's mutated thought process unraveled until he was left with his normal thought process.

A look of true horror crossed his face as he realized what he did.

Heidi snatched the dart off him as he rushed forward.

Heidi watched as the principal came running, along with the school nurse, Dorothy.

The two helped Jeremie to the Infirmary, and Heidi backed off, to call Milly.

"Hey, Milly?" She whispered.

"What is it _now_?"

"The Civilian. What's his status?"

"Hmm? Oh fine, give me a second." There was a pause, before Milly's voice rang out. "Huh? That's… strange. Heidi, it says that the threat has been neutralized. But it should only say that if the mutation was destroyed."

Heidi sunk down, a wave of relief washing over her. "It was Milly. It was Jim."

"It was _what_?"

Heidi smiled. "I'll head out to meet up with you. I think Tamiya and Johnny should probably come too."

"Johnny gets out of Science in about five minutes. I'll text them now. You'd better have an explanation, Heidi."

Heidi laughed. "Don't worry, Milly. I do. I think Tamiya has more than I do, though."

,

It took Tamiya nearly half an hour to explain why she suspected Jim. It wasn't so much that it was a difficult explanation, but Milly wanted to hear, and she kept working, so she asked Tamiya to repeat herself about a dozen times.

It turned out that he was just the most logical answer.

"And now that that's out of the way, I can focus all my time on this!" Milly said, cheerfully.

Heidi raised an eyebrow. "Define all your time."

Milly sighed. "Look, Heidi! I'm really close, I just-"

She was interrupted as a desperate message reached her from Hiroki.

**Hiroki: Milly! There's a problem. Remember how you told me what Tamiya had uncovered? Both about Jim and about Aelita? Well, X.A.N.A.'s attacking Jeremie's attempts to materialize her!**

**Milly: So? Not to be harsh, but they do a lot with X.A.N.A., how does this affect us?**

**Hiroki: If X.A.N.A. destroys Aelita's materialization, it'll destroy the whole thing, including what we're using. Even if that doesn't happen, Aelita can't be in Lyoko when you virtualize me there. Even if she didn't notice _you _guys on Lyoko, she'll definitely notice my arrival.**

**Milly: But how do we help? X.A.N.A.'s just attacking with monsters.**

The other's watched.

"Didn't you guys hack some of the monster programs?" Johnny asked. "Hiroki told me that each time you did, you'd rant about how 'useless' they were, but maybe you can bug up some of the monsters?"

Milly bit her lip. "You know, that might just work," she whispered. Then her eyes narrowed. "And I don't rant."

**Milly: Johnny was wondering if we could bug some of X.A.N.A.'s monsters using what we hacked.**

**Hiroki: Hmm… We could, but it would require an initiative program, similar to how we coupled things with the return trip. But creating another would take hours.**

**Milly: Hours we don't have… Wait! What if we attached it to the package of programs attached to the return trip? Once we connect it, we can set off a premature departure of some programs.**

"Hold up," Heidi said. "What'll that do?"

Milly gave her a very brief summary: "We make a program that'll change the monsters. We attach the program to all the others. Then we alter the whole thing so that some of the programs, in this case, the monster ones, will take place now, instead of at the return trip."

She set to work doing her best.

"Wait, though," Tamiya said. "If you can do it now, why not do it with all of the programs in the bundle?"

Milly didn't even look up from her work. "We only need to target the monsters' core programs. For the mental altercation, we need to target everyone on Earth. Not gonna work one at a time. Now be quiet."

The two worked over the next few minutes.

Tamiya frowned. "Sorry for interrupting again, but what's the rush? Are you sure they need our help?"

Heidi answered this one. "They need Jeremie to materialize Aelita. Jeremie's currently got a broken ankle, and if they can't fight the monsters on Lyoko, without him, they're dead."

**Hiroki: They've left some shields down. As far as I see, X.A.N.A.'s using a lot of his energy on making Megatanks, so I propose we bug up them.**

**Milly: 'Kay. Give me a sec…**

She hurriedly rifled through a bunch of books on Megatanks.

**Milly: Right, here we go…**

A series of programs popped up on the screen. Working together, they worked to find the most simplified version of its power.

**Hiroki: Milly, we don't have much time, the premature program departure is gonna go in about a minute. Weaken the Megatanks, ASAP!**

Finally she found the best she could work with.

**Milly: Alright, here it says that the Megatanks take 50 lifepoints, are blockable by Lyoko avatars. This other program says on a scale of 1-10, it's at 5 on its power.**

**Hiroki: Alright, which is the highest, 1 or 10?**

**Milly: I'm not sure, it doesn't say! If I guess wrong, it'll make the Megatanks _more _powerful, right?**

**Hiroki: Yes. And the creators are tricky, so you'll have to do your best.**

**Milly: I've only got about 15 seconds left. I'm gonna change it to 1, and hope for the best.**

Quickly, Milly programmed the change.

She briefly got a message, flashing,

**You are about to change the Megatanks to full power. (100 lifepoints per hit, unblockable). Do you wish to proceed? Y/N**

Milly's eyes widened, but just as she reached to hit the Y key, the time reached zero, and the program was sent into place.

"Oh no, what did I just do?" Milly whispered, horrified.

**Milly: Hiroki. I guessed wrong. What do we do!**

**Hiroki: … You want to try again?**

**Milly: I-I don't think we can. The Megatank program has been taken back. I'm sorry."**

Tamiya put a hand on her friend's shoulder.

**Hiroki: Wait, there's a power surge from Lyoko. But it's not X.A.N.A.'s power. I think… I think they _did _it.**

The whole group huddled around the supercomputer, eyes wide, waiting for Hiroki to report back.

After a few minutes of them holding their breaths in anticipation, he reported,

**Hiroki: I can't find any trace of their being a figure on Lyoko. I think they were successful, but only you guys will be able to tell.**

**Milly: How?**

**Hiroki: If she shows up on Earth.**


	13. Chapter 13

The group spent the whole night at the factory. Milly was so close to getting Hiroki out, but there was a problem.

If the only thing stopping Ulrich's group from shutting down the other supercomputer was Aelita needing it to exist, then nothing would now stop them from shutting it off.

They hadn't yet, for some reason, but Milly was worried that they wouldn't ever need to run a return trip, which would be cataclysmic to their plans. With that supercomputer off, they'd never be able to use _any _off their programs.

So the group spent the night there. Tamiya, Johnny, and Heidi helped Milly search through the whole lab for info that would help speed up the process. Not a word was made about sleep or food.

The next morning, they finished.

**Hiroki: It's still gonna need time to load together. A few hours. I suggest you guys go. I'll contact you if there's a problem, but you need to get to school.**

Milly looked at the message, before sighing.

**Milly: You're right. But I swear, we'll have you out by tonight!**

,

When they arrived, they learned that Jim had been fired. This seemed unfair, as he hadn't consciously made the decision to hurt anyone, but there wasn't anything they could do about it now. Maybe once they were done with Hiroki…

At school, the 8th grade and the 7th were getting together for a collective History class, so Milly, Tamiya, and Heidi were all in the same class.

However, as the girls went there, they noticed a fifth member of Ulrich's group.

A fifth, pink haired, member.

"Looks like they were successful after all," Heidi whispered.

Milly and Tamiya grinned, before smothering their smiles, and trying to act normal.

_By tomorrow, I'm gonna show __**my **__friend around Kadic, _Milly thought.

,

However, after History, as they had lunch, Milly got an alert from the supercomputer.

All the programs were rapidly losing power, and the connection to the other supercomputer had been severed.

**Milly: Hiroki, what's going on?**

**Hiroki: I-I think that the other supercomputer's been shut down. We were too late.**

"NO!" Milly shrieked, her knuckles white as she grasped the keyboard.

**Milly: It can't be! Is the program done?**

**Hiroki: It had about ten minutes to go, Milly. But progress is halted.**

Tears welled up in her eyes. Had they been _that _close, only to lose it?

Then, suddenly, she got word that systems were coming back online.

"Th-that-that's impossible," she whispered. "They'd have to have turned it back on? But why?"

_No, why isn't important. Just get Hiroki out and safe. Then we can wonder why._

**Milly: They turned it back on?**

**Hiroki: It looks like it. Maybe you should come to the factory. We're about good here.**

_,_

Milly was programming at the interface that she had spent more time at than any other place in the last several months.

The others waited. Tamiya fidgeted with her hair, Heidi paced, Johnny listlessly flipped through pages, looking at the monsters in the books.

Even after all their work, they weren't ready to act until the evening.

**Milly: Are you ready, Hiroki?**

**Hiroki: Um… to be honest, Milly, I'm scared. What if something goes wrong? I don't know what to expect, with all the seeing and hearing and stuff. I don't remember what it's like to see.**

**Milly: Don't worry Hiroki, I'll be with you each step of the way.**

The scanner in their factory was not strong enough to send or receive a person from Lyoko, but it was strong enough for a polymorph.

"Alright guys, this is it," she said, unable to hide a slight tremor from her voice.

"Initializing," she whispered.

On Lyoko, a slight disturbance was detected in the air. Ulrich's group had left the factory.

Soon a solitary figure appeared, landing on the ground.

Shrouded in dark cloth, only his closed, almond shaped eyes were visible. Two crossed swords were on his back, but he had no use of them.

Back in the factory, Milly got a report, saying that the virtualization had been successful.

She programed a polymorph to appear, and, exactly halfway through the polymorph's creation, programmed Hiroki's code onto it.

On Lyoko, Hiroki jerked backward, as if something was pulling him. The experience was terrifying for someone who had never had a form before. Soon his avatar fell apart into pixels and disappeared.

Milly saw the program come up positive. She stood up from her seat, eyes wide.

"Guys… it worked," she whispered.

"Really?" Johnny asked. "So now what?"

Milly turned to them, tears of excitement and happiness in her eyes. "You don't understand. It worked. He should be…"

She trailed off, before bolting down the ladder.

The others exchanged glances, before hurriedly following her.

Down in the scanner and supercomputer room, the scanner opened just as Milly reached it.

A thick mist was released into the room.

They coughed as it cleared, and when it did, Milly saw a small figure in the scanner.

"Hiroki?" She asked.

He sat bolt upright, eyes wide, gasping for air. He pressed his hands over his ears, still gasping.

"What wrong?" Tamiya asked.

Milly knelt down. "Hiroki, Hiroki, calm down," she whispered. She had an idea of what was wrong. Hiroki had never heard words before. It would take a few seconds for his mind to translate what she said into the typed words he was used to. He also wasn't used to seeing or hearing or breathing or smelling or anything.

His breathing slowed slightly, as her words registered. "It-it's so-" his mouth stumbled over words he wasn't familiar vocalizing. "It's so _bright _here," he finally got out, before giving Milly a small smile.

He didn't know what he had been expecting, but it wasn't this. Everything was so vibrant, so real.

And Milly…

She was like nothing he had expected. Her hair, her eyes, everything. She was so there, right in front of him.

"Milly," he whispered, before falling unconscious.

Heidi knelt down next to him. "What's wrong?"

Milly smiled watching his eyes shut. She had no idea of how he would look, but this exceeded her expectations.

She looked up at Heidi. "Just think about it. He had no idea of how being corporal feels. That alone should explain it."

Heidi smiled, relieved. She had been worried that something was wrong, but everything seemed to be going alright.

"What do you think?" Tamiya whispered. "Should we go back?"

Milly nodded. "You guys go. I'll get sleep here, but I don't want him to wake up alone. And he can't leave until they run a return trip."

Tamiya nodded. "Come on guys. It's been a while since we've gotten some sleep."

Johnny grinned. "Speaking my language," he said with a yawn.

Soon the factory was empty, except for the two figures in the supercomputer room.

Milly had fallen asleep, sitting slumped against the scanner, while Hiroki slept inside the scanner.

It was nearly nine when Hiroki woke up.

He looked around the scanner. "H-hello?" He called, tentatively. However, because he wouldn't raise his voice (he didn't like the loud noise), Milly stayed asleep.

Using the scanner to brace himself, he struggled to his feet. The height made him dizzy, and he slumped to ground.

_That _woke Milly, sat up, yawning. "Morning Hiroki." Then she paused, before looking in the factory. "Hiroki!"

He covered his ears. "P-please," he mumbled. "Be a little more quiet."

She smiled. "For now," she said, lowering her voice. "But you're gonna have to get used to loud noises eventually.

He grumbled at this, and she held out a hand to help him up.

,

The two spent the rest of the morning learning to walk, move, talk, smell, taste, and any other thing she could teach him.

"See, you have the strength to support your limbs, you just don't have the coordination."

"I feel like a baby," he grumbled, as he tried to take a few steps on his own.

"There you go. You'll be walking like a pro in no time, you'll see."

Soon the others came to visit him.

"Well," Heidi said, smiling, "he's certainly more functional than he was this morning. How's it going, Hiroki?"

"Fine," he said, smiling.

Tamiya gave him a small hug, and Johnny slapped him on the back.

He gave a gasp and tumbled to the ground.

"Watch it," he growled, smiling. "Once I get my feet under me…"

The others laughed.

,

Heidi had just come back from lunch, snagging an extra plate for Hiroki.

"Here, try your hand at eating."

He frowned in concentration, trying to clumsily manage his fork.

The others wisely ate their own meals, giving him his space.

Finally he got a mouthful of potatoes, which he promptly spat out.

"What's wrong?" Milly asked. "The potatoes are actually good."

He gasped for breath, sputtering. "It-it's _weird_. It's all funny, it's strange."

Johnny grinned. "First time eating food? Don't worry, you get used to it."

Hiroki's cheeks reddened. "Is that all? That's just the whole taste thing?" He sighed. "This is gonna be hard."

He managed to finish his meal, even enjoying it by the end.

Then, he stopped, his eyes wide.

"What is it?" Tamiya asked.

He was quiet. "I'd know that anywhere. X.A.N.A.'s attacking."

,

Heidi and Johnny rushed back to the school. Tamiya and Milly were staying back at the factory.

They found quite an attack there. Instead of a bunch of laughing gas, or the building falling apart, they were treated to what they knew were kankralets.

"Oh super," Heidi muttered, as she got to work evacuating.

,

Back at the factory, Milly was quadruple checking that everything was in place. According to Heidi, there was no way that they'd let this go by without a return trip.

"Alright," Milly said. "When the return trip goes by, you've got to get to the Ishyama house. I've given you directions. You're gonna be 'sick', you're just getting over strep throat. That's just to give you a few days to be at home."

"Milly, Milly, I _know_. We've been over this a hundred times! I know what to do once I get to the Ishyama's don't worry."

Milly sighed. "This is gonna be so weird."

He snorted. "You're telling me! I'm the one who's got to sneak into some stranger's house, climb in what used to be the guest room, and pretend I'm sick there!"

"I think it's genius," Tamiya said. "You guys have thought of everything."

Hiroki smiled. "And so long as I can keep my rolled, everything will be fine."

"Don't worry," Milly said. "I've hacked every record, every tax, every bank withdrawal to get a pretty good idea of what happened. That's why it took so long, had to make sure their memories actually mesh with reality."

"To an extent," he muttered, before nodding. "Alright, the tower's been deactivated." He looked at the girls. "I'll see you at school in a few days."

Milly beamed. "See you soon," she whispered.

Both girls gave him a hug, before the return trip washed over them.

,

That night, Milly had the first night sleep where she didn't have to be wrenched away from a computer screen to sleep.

She was thinking about Hiroki, and his new role. He had given her a call, saying the Mrs. Ishyama (or mom as he know called her) had checked on him a few times, and told him that he would be alright and ready to go to school in a few days.

Then Mr. Ishyama (dad) had come in, and made sure he was comfortable.

Later, that afternoon, Yumi had come in, and ruffled his hair, telling him to get better. They had given him food for dinner, but he hadn't left his bed.

Milly got the impression he was still in shock from how fast his life had changed.

A few feet over, in her bed, Tamiya stared up at the ceiling, thinking about how much had changed from when they first found the supercomputer. She had hardly known Heidi or Johnny. Heck, Hiroki didn't even exist.

Now she had both saved Ulrich's group (with Jim) and helped harm them (with the Megatanks). This last one, they didn't even know had changed, because it was SWATR, like Hiroki's false memories.

She sighed, and turned over, her eyes sliding closed.

Heidi and Johnny both slept peacefully, mentally drained by the attack. Even if it hadn't actually happened, the two were exhausted, and wanted to get some sleep.

Meanwhile, Hiroki lay awake in bed, staring at his ceiling. _His _ceiling in _his _room. Would he ever get used to this?

Just a few hours ago, the return trip had deposited him in the scanner in the factory.

Despite the fact that, at the time, he had been in the supercomputer, Milly had programmed it so that he'd be in the scanner.

He had then run all the way to the Ishyama house, and here he was.

They were in the process of 'redecorating' his room, which is why it was so empty.

He rolled over, trying to sleep.

_Someday,_ he thought, _someday, this __**will**__ be my home. This __**will**__ be my family. I have so many false memories. Starting tomorrow, I start making __**new**__ memories. __**Real**__ memories._

_**My **memories._


	14. Epilogue

Milly's eyes flitted open as she heard a beep on her laptop.

Sleepily, she opened it, reading the message.

**Come to the factory.**

Confused, she obeyed, moving through the halls as if in a dream, down the hallway, out of the dorms, and into the night.

Soon she was at the factory, where she climbed down the ladder, and slipped into the lab room.

The computer screen displayed static, which was strange, as it never had before.

Then it went black, and a message displayed on the screen.

**You have released my AI from this supercomputer. But be warned. As you have created the path, it may happen that another will follow.**

**Milly: Who are you? What are you talking about?**

**You have often come here. You have so often talked about X.A.N.A. and Hi. Ro. K.I., and Lyoko, and all of our programs, but have given precious little thought to us.**

**We created this. And I come to you now to warn you, that creating a link from the virtual world to the human world, one that AIs can cross in such a permanent way, is both foolish and dangerous. I warn you to proceed with caution.**

**My associate cannot help you. He is far too preoccupied with assuring that his daughter is safe. However, Hi. Ro. K.I. is the closest thing I have to a son. I will assist you when I am able, but know this: X.A.N.A. is more dangerous a threat than you or any other can imagine. Be cautious, and never trust him.**

**I trust you will not allow my warnings to go to waste, nor will my faith go unfounded.**

**Take care, Milly.**

_**SeeMeInTheShadows**_


End file.
